Top brewer offers value and growth

Article Excerpt

MOLSON COORS CANADA INC. (Toronto symbols TPX.A $49 and TPX.B $49; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 181.7 million; Market cap: $8.9 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.4; Dividend yield: 2.6%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.molsoncoors.com) is one of the world’s leading brewers. Its main brands include Coors Light, Molson Canadian and Carling. The company’s sales fell 36.5%, from $4.8 billion in 2008 to $3.0 billion in 2009 (all amounts except share prices and market cap in U.S. dollars). That’s because it merged its U.S. brewing operations with those of rival SABMiller to form MillerCoors. Each company has a 50% voting interest in this joint venture, but Miller gets 58% of the profits while Molson Coors gets 42%. Because it owns less than half of MillerCoors, accounting rules forced Molson Coors to stop including the sales from this business in its overall sales. Big acquisition helps fuel sales growth However, sales rebounded to $3.9 billion in 2012. That’s partly due to the…