Topic: How To Invest

Hi Pat: Could I get your view on Contrans Group? Thanks.

Article Excerpt

Contrans Group, $9.52, symbol CSS on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 32.3 million; Market cap: $307.5 million; www.contrans.ca), is a Canadian company that ships freight via flatbed trailers, vans and tanker trailers. Contrans has terminals across the country. The company has about 1,000 employees. Its fleet consists of 2,200 trailers and 1,200 trucks, 700 of which are owned and operated by their drivers. Contrans continues to grow by acquisition. For example, in June 2012, it bought Peter Hodge Transport Limited, a Milton, Ontario, company with 92 trucks and 140 trailers, for an undisclosed amount. In the three months ended June 30, 2012, Contrans’s revenue rose 25.3%, to $115.0 million from $91.8 million a year earlier. Acquisitions contributed $11.4 million to the revenue increase. Earnings per share rose 60.0%, to a record $0.24 from $0.15. The revenue increase pushed up earnings, and the company was able to pass on higher fuel costs as surcharges. Contrans’s growth-by-acquisition strategy adds risk, but it mostly buys small companies, and it…