James Telfser Exchange Income EIF-T HOLD Apr 15, 2024

It is a good name and operates in rural and northern areas in Canada. It is the only airline in the North Pacific region. It operates in niche businesses and is like a mini-monopoly. It has a good CEO and she wants to see if this applies to the whole team behind the CEO. Has a 5.7% yield

Nice little name that everyone forgets about. Aviation, industrial. Q1 strong, some manufacturing weakness. Reiterated full-year guidance. Nice organic growth. Nice dividend, low payout ratio, will probably increase dividend. Improving balance sheet. 14% growth, trading ~10x. Cheap, overlooked, some dividend growth. Can buy here.

EPS of 80c missed estimates of 85c; Revenue of $660.5M missed estimates of $678.1M. EBITDA of $157M beat estimates of $152.8M. Revenue rose 5.3%. EBITDA rose 6.8%. Guidance was largely maintained. The manufacturing segment is seeing some customer wariness and less bookings. It is a cyclical segment and we would not really consider this a red flag to the company. The stock is cheap and the payout at 61% (up from 57%) remains OK. 
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Getting into intelligence and surveillance globally. Manufacturing is weak now due to macro environment, but sees it turning around. Likes it for yield and growth.

Holding company, without much integration between assets. Not much value creation from acquiring and running assets. Wouldn't expect it to outperform the market by a lot. Fair value right now, a hold.

Beat on aviation in Q3, raised 2025 guidance on the back of their latest acquisition of Spartan. Lumpy, not as steady a compounder as BIP.UN. Always kind of cheap, now 13x PE for 2026 and growing 17%. Nice dividend, which will probably be boosted; payout ratio is fine. 

Not for everyone. Small cap that gets forgotten, so that's a good reason to own.

Would be less exposed to any tariffs imposed.

Their transportation business in the far north is largely a monopoly. They've bought some fine companies and pay a good dividend, but leaves little cash. So when they buy a company, they do an equity issue. Some of their businesses are highly protected with a moat, good. But their industrial business carries economic/tariff risk. Dividend, valuation and management are all good. An income, not a growth stock.

Business is 80% aviation, 20% manufacturing. Recent acquisition looks accretive. Trades ~12x, growing ~16%. Money's flowing into safer areas like this one. Good balance sheet. Payout ratio is 68%, will probably boost dividend in the next year or two. Real growth engine is from being in the north and having really good pricing power.

Only thing is, if we're in for rocky markets, you'll probably get a chance to buy cheaper.