Friday, July 11, 2008

Canwest stock up on good operating results

Canwest stock up on good operating resultsSix-month TSX trading in Canwest

Shares of Canwest Global Communications added 24 cents in early TSX trading after the media company posted good third-quarter operating results.

But the newspaper and broadcast owner fell into the red for the three months ended May 31 after including interest and investment charges.

The stock, which has ranged between $2.01 and $9.98 in the past year, was changing hands at $2.26 just after the Toronto market opened.

Leonard Asper, president and CEO, complained about the stock price in the news release with the quarterly results. "Given the diversity and strength of our properties, we believe that Canwest's stock is undervalued."

While all its major lines of business did better, Canwest said two sets of financial charges dragged down the results:

Interest payments were $78.7 million in the most recent quarter, compared with $45.3 million in the third quarter of 2007.There was a $24.7-million investment loss, compared with a profit of $8.9 million in 2007.

That produced a loss for the three months ended May 31 of $28 million (16 cents a share), compared with a profit of $8 million (five cents) a year earlier.

Revenue was $851.8 million, compared with $738.1 million.

Interest charges have increased after the company bought the broadcast operations of Alliance Atlantis last year. It recently said it issued $312 million US of notes paying 13.5 per cent to refinance the purchase.

Canwest said it is looking into selling its British radio business, which lost $5.1 million in the first three quarters.

The loss for the nine months ended May 31 was $22 million (12 cents a share), compared with a profit of $82 million (46 cents) a year earlier.

Revenue was $2.42 billion, compared with $2.19 billion.



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