Alimentation Couche-Tard (B) (ATD.B.TO)

(A Top Pick Jan 26/16. Up 7.99%.) Has owned this for a very, very long time. Made a big acquisition in the US, so investors have kind of taken a break on this, but it will resume again.

(A Top Pick Oct 13/15. Up 11.14%.) They just continue to do all the right things. An acquisition story and they are expanding into Europe. They’re doing everything right. Margins are going up and growth is very, very strong.

(A Top Pick March 2/15. Up 40.56%.) Great management. They’ve been integrating industries for years, and will continue to do so. Made a fairly large acquisition in the US, and is obviously looking for more acquisitions in Europe.

(Top Pick Aug 29/16, Up 0.51%) It is involved in a transaction with PKI-T. After he got involved they announced an acquisition. They are a very skillful operator of gas stations. They merchandise stores well. 33-34% gross margins. They have been a tremendous acquirer.

One of the prolific value creators in the Canadian sector. Very profitable, growthy and has lots of runway ahead of it.

(A Top Pick Aug 19/16. Up 8.02%.) He had been expecting them to take over CFT Brands in the US, and they did this 2 days after he had picked it, and the price spiked from about $64 to about $68. This is one of those categories of “forever hold”. Very, very well-run.

The issue is that the stock price is very high relative to its FMV. Not that it is horribly overpriced the way some companies are, but a lot of the great move now is behind it. He holds this one pretty much across the board, but it is one of those companies that he keeps cutting back on so that he doesn’t get grossly exposed to very high priced stocks in weak markets.

Has held this for a long time, and it has done great. The only concern is that it has had a grind for 2016. The market reacted very positively to their CST purchase in the US. It had a big pop and then has faded back down. The problem is, they are going to have a lot of acquisitions they are going to have to work through right now, which is what the market is probably not rewarding them for. It will probably continue to consolidate for another couple of months, and then hopefully will resolve itself to the upside.

At some point he thinks they will run out of things to buy. He doesn’t like roll ups. He is not convinced where gasoline demand will be 5 years from now. It has a lot of momentum so he does not short it.

(Market Call Minute.) This would be a Hold. The acquisition they did is going to be very beneficial to the growth going forward.

(A Top Pick Sept 10/15. Up 7.86%.) This was trading sideways for a while, but recently was showing a negative return. Now everything has just turned around fantastically. Continues to execute well on the acquisitions. The big challenge is that more and more of their business is “away” from Central North America Canada. Will they continue to be able to navigate through in an environment where e-tailing and e-commerce is important? Feels convenience stores and gasoline are areas that are not going to be attacked.

It is great, but what do you pay for it. He just can’t justify the price any more.

Had always believed this was an expensive company, but it is rightly so because they are doing all the right things. Have had a huge amount of acquisitions that they have swallowed up in the past year. There is a lot of integration work involved now. At this point, it would be a “show me” stock.

They are refueling their growth with a series of acquisitions. We are hitting resistance at EBV+6 so the ride is over. Model price $71. If we ever get a correction he would love to buy it at $45.

One of the premier growth stories in Canada, not just in the consumer space, but in any sector. Extremely well-managed. They have a 20+ year track record of growing earnings and improving returns on shareholders’ equity. Just pulled the trigger on a very large transformational acquisition with the purchase of CFT Brands. The synergies on that should come in at about $150-$250 million, bigger than most of the street was expecting. Dividend yield of 0.46%.