Topic: How To Invest

Pat: Can I have your advice on DigitalGlobe? Thank you.

Article Excerpt

DigitalGlobe, $28.40, symbol DGI on New York (Shares outstanding: 73.7 million; Market cap: $2.1 billion; www.digitalglobe.com), is a leading provider of commercial high-resolution earth-imagery products and services. The company’s technology is used in a range of applications, including defence, intelligence, homeland security, environmental monitoring and oil and gas exploration. DigitalGlobe’s distribution options include a direct access program that allows certain customers to directly obtain data from satellites. The company’s main customers are governments, including U.S. and foreign defence and intelligence organizations, civil agencies and providers of location-based services such Internet portals, connected devices and digital mapmakers. Additionally, DigitalGlobe serves a wide variety of companies in other industries, such as financial services, energy, telecommunications, utilities, forestry, mining, environmental services and agriculture. DigitalGlobe’s sales and earnings continue to rise along with broad-based demand from both defence and commercial customers. As well, the company recently acquired rival GeoEye for $453 million. This lessens DigitalGlobe’s competition and leaves it with the largest fleet of high-resolution Earth…