June 23, 2009
Speaking this week with Paul Taylor of the BMO Harris Investment Management in Toronto, we asked him to give us some of the companies he’s looking at in the Canadian market:
- SNC-Lavalin (SNC:TSX) – “SNC-Lavalin is an engineering and construction firm. If you want to build a road, a new hospital, if you want to build a plant surface facility at a base metals operation [in Canada], you approach SNC-Lavalin for project management to take your project from greenfield to a completed facility. There was a very, very healthy backlog for all of the infrastructure firms including SNC-Lavalin going into 2008, while from the private sector there have been some projects that have been canceled. South of the border the public sector and the Obama Administration have earmarked fiscal stimulus plans for infrastructure. Similarly the Harper Administration here north of the border has a significant spend on infrastructure projects and firms like SNC will be beneficiaries.”
- Research in Motion (RIMM)- “We did add to our Research in Motion position in February and we believe that is an example of world-leading innovation in a very significant market segment. We believe the transition from old phones to smart phones is a process that is inevitable, and it will continue to emerge at least over thenext three to five years. Research in Motion, which booked their one millionth subscriber four years ago, is a firm that we believe has the potential to grow to 50 million or 100 million subscribers in the not too distant future, and we believe from a valuation perspective that this is a stock with tremendous growth potential, trading at very reasonable valuation multiples.”
- Suncor (SU) & Petro-Canada (PCZ)- “We’ve owned the majors [in oil sands], we’ve owned Suncor and we’ve owned Petro-Canada. Of course, Suncor is in the process of taking out Petro-Canada to get the scale that is required to fund the capital expenditures that are needed to be able to extract oil from the sand. The idea of having a firm of the scale of the combined Suncor/Petro-Canada is compelling when oil goes from $147 to $40 and then back to $60. So we have some core exposure to the oil sands.”
For the complete Investing Strategies report, including a full interview with Mr. Taylor, as well as other portfolio managers in a wide variety of investment styles and focuses, click here.
