On Friday the S&P 500 was basically unchanged while the Toronto Stock index gained 0.5%. I believe the Canadian dollar fell about a half cent which benefits Canadians that hold U.S. stocks and who track their portfolio in Cnadian dollars. It hurts Americans who hold Canadian stocks.
Boston Pizza Royalties Income Fund is updated and rated (higher) Buy at $20.86
This is actually a rather odd entity. A heavily financially engineered entity that collects a 4% royalty from food sales at Boston Pizza restaurants (excludes alcohol). The units unfortunately do not benefit in any meaningful way from new store openings. That is because new units are issued to basically the founders of BP in exchange for the right to the 4% from these new stores. The unit distribution will rise over time only if same store food sales rise. These units have bond-like characteristics but also offer some possible growth (and risk of shrinkage – and shrinkage is seldom or never a good thing!). Overall the 5.9% yield (and the yield should grow over time) seems attractive given today’s low interest rates. If the yield were to grow at 3% per year (as same-store restaurant sales rise) the total return would be about 8.9% per year, assuming no change in the P/E ratio and that would be quite attractive. The units would however fall in price if interest rates rise.
This entity is not the best fit for my standard template for evaluating stocks. For this update I assumed that the P/E ratio in the long term will range from 14 to 17. (Previously i assumed a more conservative terminal P/E ratio). An entity that distributed all of its earnings and which is apparently lower risk can support a higher P/E ratio at a given growth rate.
Certainly there are no guarantees but this looks like an attractive investment to put into the mix in a portfolio. I had sold my units early in 2013 but I now plan to buy back into this entity.