TorstarCorp (B) (TS.B.TO)

Not a fan of this type of business. Basically it is a print company that is trying to find a way to make money in the digital era, which is increasingly difficult. It has the advantage of having sold some assets and has a bunch of cash, so the dividend may be safe. Until media companies find a way to transition from print to digital profitably, he doesn’t want to be involved.

This is a company that faces a very difficult environment in its core market. Subscribers to newspapers are disappearing and they are losing advertising revenue to “Facebook”. He doesn't want to be involved in this industry. They are trying to broaden out,(using Metroland and tablets editions), but hasn't gained any traction. Yield is 11%, but not sustainable.

Sold their Harlequin publishing a while ago, so they have a lot of cash. However, the traditional paper publishing business is not doing great. Advertising is down and print media is shrinking in market share. Current dividend yield is about 10%, but if they don’t redeploy their money into some business that generates more cash flow, they won’t be able to sustain that. They could pay a special dividend, but if that’s all they do than you can expect a dividend cut as some point down the road. Thinks they are reporting tomorrow, so the best thing to do is to wait and see. Doesn’t see a huge amount of downside here.

He is looking for things that have a defensive positioning like this one. It has cash value equal probably to 70% of the stock market value, so you are paying 2 to 3 times cash flow for the operations of the company. Even though they are not going to grow and newspapers are a dying business, he thinks there is value in the trade. A lot of their assets are probably worth a lot more than the market gives them credit for. Has about a 9% dividend yield.

This has been one of the more frustrating ones in his portfolio as they have done nothing and they keep missing on the earnings. This is a stock trading at around $6 with a market cap of around $500 million with about $300 million in cash. The bottom line is that it is such a cheap stock. It is a bit of a value trap because it seems to get cheaper, but the earnings are just not growing. The move into digital media should help. He thinks all of this is worth $8-$10 a share.

They are in decline and it is a case of how long they can afford to pay out their dividend. You are waiting for it to be eliminated or cut.

Ended up selling his holdings for a tax loss. It did seem like old media. They have moved into new media at the same time, but have had a lot of problems doing it. Advertising has been going down. Great management. He wouldn’t be interested in buying this.

Doesn’t own a lot of media right now because it is so hard to figure out where it is going. The landscape is changing so fast. The media sector is a tough place to be right now.

They are sitting on a lot of cash. Over half of their market capitalization is cash. 7.78% dividend yield. You get a great yield while you wait.

(A Top Pick March 25/14. Up 11.39%.) Half of its Market Cap is in cash right now. It earns its dividend, which is about 7%. Dirt, dirt cheap. When they start to utilize their cash, they can lever up their balance sheet, really change the business, and make it an average multiple and you could probably get $8, $9, $10 off of this. While that happens, you get paid to wait.

The dividend is safe for the foreseeable future. They have a lot of cash on the balance sheet and the question is what they are going to do with it as the newspaper part of the business looks dismal. Wait to see what they are going to do.

It is a cheap stock. 60% of revenues are from advertizing. They just sold Harlequin and could fund the dividend with that but it is not currently covered by free cash flow. They need to do something with the capital. Print business is declining so they have to do something, perhaps in the digital area.

(A Top Pick March 17/04. Up 26.51%.) This is a value Call. It has a market capitalization of around $550 million with $300 million in cash, so you are only paying $250 million for the core operations of the business, which probably has $150 million in cash flow right now. On that valuation it is ridiculously cheap, Dividend of 8%.

When they sold Harlequin, they did much better than anyone expected with $450 million. Has a market cap of $500 million right now with about $200 million in cash. Newspaper business is not growing, but they are cutting costs. Their digital division is growing. 8.16% dividend yield with lots of cash to pay it.

Owned this for a number of years and took a tax loss at $5+. He was very concerned they were going to cut the dividend. They didn’t cut it and they also sold Harlequin, which guaranteed the dividend for a little while. He would find this difficult to own at this time.