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

It seems this company is in the running to acquire CFT Brands in the US. This is an excellent allocator. If they can do this acquisition, they should break to new highs. Dividend yield of 0.5%.

A very good acquirer. When they make an acquisition, the stock tends to go up. They are good at integrating their acquisitions. This tends to trade at quite a premium, and she is more of a value-based investor. Her preference would be to wait for a pullback.

Alimentation Couche-tard (ATD.B-T) or Parkland Fuel (PKI-T)? A tough call. This one is in Europe making all sorts of acquisitions and is an acquisition driven story. Parkland is making smaller acquisitions, but their main thesis over the next 5 years is cost reduction in order to improve margins and is largely NA focused. This is a faster growing company and much, much larger, giving a safety element. Has a fabulous long-term track record. He would choose large and safer over smaller Canadian company.

Feels it is too late to be buying. The track record of the management team has been very shareholder oriented, and returns they have delivered have been nothing short of extraordinary. It is all a question of what you are willing to pay for those attributes. He would argue that the market is overpaying from what he sees for the next 1-3 years. The business is now $30 billion+ dollar market cap. He started buying it at a $2 billion market cap. Fuel margins are a big driver of their profits and they are getting $.18-$.19 a gallon, and a lot of that has to do with declining oil prices. Sold his holdings, and would like to buy it back, but at 18X.

(A Top Pick July 3/15. Up 10.83%.) Sold his holdings at about this level in February. This is a long-term growth company, and one that you can just Buy and tuck away. If you are a longer-term investor, continue to Hold.

It probably got ahead of itself and now growth has almost caught up to itself.

The company will continue to make acquisitions. One of the fears was that as oil prices rise, gasoline margins will contract. Because of that, some of the analysts became ridiculously negative. In fact the company beat on the margin spread. Other than that everything else is great. They are doing well in all 3 geographies, and she expects they will continue to make acquisitions.

(A Top Pick July 3/15. Up 10.14%.) They just came out with earnings, which marks the 8^th consecutive year of sequential growth, beating expectations. There is a little concern with regards to their exposure to Europe. A great price to be accumulating this name.

Just reported. The consensus was 38 and they were 39, versus 25 a year ago, so are growing pretty nicely. You can buy this at about 18X earnings, where a year ago the multiple was 22X. There are more acquisitions to do. Management is great. Dividend yield of 0.54%.

They are his largest equity position. He likes them a lot. There are some issues with the management extending voting rights to their children. It is a good entry point.

(Top Pick Jul 3/15, Up 2.73%) A good long term holding. It is always on his radar screen. He got out. If it dropped a little bit more he would want to hold it again.

Alimentation Couche-Tard (ATD.B-T) or Magna (MG-T)? Since he owns Magna and not this one, Magna is the only one he can recommend. However, this is a great company and it has come back a little. Feels it has sold off partly because there are concerns they might overbid for CST Brands which is rumoured to be up for sale. This one benefits from the low Cdn$, so they are probably doing okay now. It has always been an expensive company.

A “Best in class” type of name. The valuation multiple was getting higher, but has come down a lot and is more reasonable in price. They are still doing acquisitions globally, and has been a very astute team in being able to pick up interesting companies at fair prices, and growing shareholder value.

The ownership structure is a little under the cloud here, in terms of the original owners at how much stock they own. His model price is $65.44, a 25% upside. Would love this at $42, but $52 is not bad. Pick away at this.

A growth by acquisition story, which presents a lot of opportunities as well risks. Their last acquisition of Pantry was a bit of a dog’s breakfast along with some potential integration issues. This would be only a hiccup, as management has done very well at integrating in the past.