Topic: How To Invest

Hi, Pat. Can you please give me your opinion on Counsel Corp.?

Article Excerpt

Counsel Corp., $2.15, symbol CXS on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 99.4 million; Market cap: $211.6 million; www.counselcorp.com), operates a residential mortgage-lending business through its wholly owned subsidiary, Street Capital. The company sources its mortgages through a network of independent brokers in all Canadian provinces except Quebec. It then sells the mortgages it underwrites to leading financial institutions. Even though the company sells the mortgages, it continues to handle all communication with borrowers throughout each mortgage’s term. That lets it renew mortgages without the cost of acquiring new ones, which typically involves significant expenses for things like brokers, marketing and underwriting. In the first quarter of 2013, Counsel launched a plan to dispose of nonessential divisions—Asset Liquidation, Case Goods and Real Estate—and focus on its financial services business. It had finished these moves by the end of the first quarter of 2014. Counsel is now winding down its private equity business, having sold most of the holdings of the Knight’s Bridge Capital Partners Fund. The fund’s…