November Stock Roundup: Intertape Polymer beats on earnings.

This month a few of my stocks have reported earnings:

• Caledonia Mining
• Artis Reit
• Intertape Polymer

While, most of them did well.  I was extremely pleased with Intertape Polymer’s results.  You may recall I purchased ITP just over a month ago when it was near its 52 week low.

Here is what I said in October:

“The business itself is boring, but it has paid and increased the dividend for over 5 years (yields 3.5%)in US dollars, has increased earnings year over year and was trading at a 30% discount to the 52 week high.  I purchased 275 shares @ 19.08.”

The stock had been beat up for no apparent reason, and last week they reported EPS of 0.32 vs the analyst expected 0.29.

Here are some other notes from their earnings report:

• Revenue increased by almost 18% (mostly due to acquisitions)
• Net earnings increased from $13 to $19.2 million
• Adjusted EBITDA increased 15.9% to $32.4 million
• ITP repurchased/cancelled almost 500k shares
• Revenue in the fourth quarter is expected to be greater than last year
• Gross margin & adjusted EBITDA are expected to be greater in the 4th quarter than last year.

All in all, it was a great report, and it looks like the next quarter should be just as good if not better!

Here are a few notes from some other stocks I own that reported earnings over the last week or two.

Caledonia Mining:

This has been one of my favorite stocks for the last few years.  It never seems to get the attention it deserves, but it continues to be well positioned financially, trades extremely cheaply and has a lot of cash on hand.  I hope with their increased cash position & low stock price the company decides to buy back some shares.

• Increased gold production &  gross & net profit
• Increased EPS
• Broke a record for most gold produced in a single quarter
• Increased their overall cash position – net cash now close to 12 million
• Plans to extend depth of the mine which should result in 4 extra years of production.

Artis REIT:

Artis is a REIT headquartered in my home town of Winnipeg.  They own buildings all across Canada & the USA.  The stock had been beat up the last couple of years due to a high % of their properties being in Alberta (when oil prices dropped, the Alberta economy tanked & a lot of the buildings lost value/became vacant).  Over the last couple of years they have been selling off some Alberta properties and expanding in the US market.  It looks like this move is starting to pay off.

• Net operating income from Alberta has been reduced from almost 40% to 25%
• Because a third of their income comes from USA when the Canadian dollar is weak, the returns are even stronger
• Reduced total debt to EBITDA
• Continuing to reduce retail exposure
• Reported FFO per unit of $0.36
• Dividend currently yielding a whopping 7.6%. The payout ratio is pretty high, but they should be able to continue to pay as they have been able to consistently reduce their debt.