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Investment Q&A

Not investment advice or solicitation to buy/sell securities. Do your own due diligence and/or consult an advisor.

Q: I was reading your answer to an earlier question on FSV earnings. The diluted earnings per share were 0.42 vs 0.43 a year ago and expectations of .50 for the quarter.
Which metric would you consider more relevant - diluted eps or the adjusted eps of 0.74? I would appreciate if you could provide the reasoning as it applies to FSV.
Expensive no doubt, but would you consider it a buy?
Regards.
Read Answer Asked by Rajiv on October 27, 2017
Q: My company has announced an employee share offer plan. I would like your opinion on the pros and cons of employee share offer plans in general, and specifically on the plan being offered to me.

I work for a large European company (20B euro market cap; 65,000 employees in 50 countries), and the stock trades in Europe. This is not a small start-up company.

The key terms of the offer are: (a) 20% discount on the share price, (b) 1 free share for every 4 shares subscribed up to 10 matching shares, (c) account management fees paid by the company, (d) investment locked-in for 5 years (to Dec 2022) (except in the case of early redemption). I really don’t like being locked in for 5 years, but I guess that is the price to pay for a 20% discount.

I have been burned before on an employee share offer program (dot com era), so am always questioning why companies ask employees for help. The employer always promotes how good it is for employees (e.g. 20% discount), but what is in it for the company? If the company needs to raise money why not just go to the stock market? I don’t buy the pride of ownership in the company you work for, blah, blah, at least not with a very large company (I am one of 65,000 employees).

I am skeptical when employers tell employees how great something is for them. Been burned before 15 years ago when they told us how great it is for us to switch from a DB pension plan to a DC pension plan. They neglected to tell us how much better it is for them if we switched from the DBPP to the DCPP.

p.s. Maybe one day you can do a blog on pros and cons of employee share offers, and what an employee should look out for.
Read Answer Asked by Paul on October 27, 2017
Q: Good morning

Thinking about the possible divestitures that POT will likely make to get approval of the merger. Are assets in situations like this typically sold before or after the merger?

If the assets are sold after the merger and at a premium to book value, it would seem the premium would be shared among shareholders of both companies even though the premium was not anticipated at the time the company values were set for the merger.

It would make more sense to me to sell prior to the merger and distribute the premium over book to the POT shareholders. Of course, if the premium is insignificant then it is a moot point.

Anyway, just curious to hear your thoughts.

Thanks for all your help.
Peter
Read Answer Asked by Peter on October 27, 2017
Q: I own all three of these companies. I am up 10% in WSP, 10% in CCL.B and 13% in RCI.B I want to add to one of them, which one would you suggest?
Thanks for your help. Dorothy
Read Answer Asked by Dorothy on October 27, 2017
Q: Hi, I’m getting a little disappointed in oil a gas sector and really do think it is more a liability ,as time and technology eats away at the sector.
I have Tog and Wcp 7% and thinking of selling Tog with a loss of 25%, an putting it in healthcare or Tech.
Would you agree with this switch, and what would you recommend.
Thanks, Brad
Read Answer Asked by Brad on October 27, 2017
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