Its lower costs set you up for future gains

Article Excerpt

MOLSON COORS CANADA INC. (Toronto symbols TPX.A $81 and TPX.B $76; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 216.4 million; Market cap: $16.4 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.6;- Dividend yield: 4.0%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.molsoncoors.com) is the world’s fifth-largest largest brewer of beer by market cap. Its top brands include Coors Light, Miller Genuine Draft, Molson Canadian and Carling. Both baby boomers and millennials are drinking more spirits and wine instead of beer. In response, big brewers like Molson are aggressively cutting their costs. As part of that plan, in October 2016 the company acquired the remaining 58% of its MillerCoors brewing joint venture from SABMiller for $12 billion (all amounts except share prices and market cap in U.S. dollars). Back in 2008, the two firms combined their U.S. brewing operations. Sales more that doubled after purchase Molson’s sales fell 14.0% from $4.15 billion in 2014 to $3.57 billion in 2015. That drop was because of the impact of currency rates and the loss of a contract to…