Yellow Pages Limited

Last updated
Yellow Pages Limited
TypePublic
TSX:  Y
IndustryMedia
Headquarters1751 Richardson St., ,
Number of employees
608
Website corporate.yp.ca

Yellow Pages Limited (formerly Yellow Pages Income Fund and Yellow Media) is a Canadian publication and internet services company that owns and operates Canadian properties and publications including Yellow Pages directories, YellowPages.ca, and Canada411.ca. Its online destinations reach approximately 9 million of unique visitors monthly and its mobile applications for finding local citizens, downloaded over 3 million times. The company was founded following the buyout of Bell Canada's directory business and subsequently acquired SuperPages Canada, the directory publisher for Telus.

Contents

In October 2008, Yellow Pages was named one of "Canada's Top 100 Employers" by Mediacorp Canada Inc. and was featured in Maclean's newsmagazine, the only directory publisher to receive this honour. [1]

In March 2011, Yellow Pages sold Trader Corporation to funds advised by Apax Partners for $745 million. [2] Its ticker symbol changed from YLO to Y in 2012. [3]

On January 16, 2018, it was announced that Yellow Pages would cut 18% otherwise, one fifth of its workforce. That very same day, approximately 500 employees were laid off nation-wide. According to its new CEO David Eckert, such measures were essential to ensure short-term financial health of the company, whose stock price took a significant nosedive over the year 2016–2017.

Its headquarters is located at 1751 Richardson Street in Montreal, Québec.

Dividend controversy

Yellow Media is considered by some Canadian financial writers to be a prime example of why investors should be skeptical of high dividend yields. [4] In 2011, the company maintained a high dividend yield despite close scrutiny, [5] [6] before finally cutting dividends and taking a stock price hit. [7]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dividend</span> Payment made by a corporation to its shareholders, usually as a distribution of profits

A dividend is a distribution of profits by a corporation to its shareholders. When a corporation earns a profit or surplus, it is able to pay a portion of the profit as a dividend to shareholders. Any amount not distributed is taken to be re-invested in the business. The current year profit as well as the retained earnings of previous years are available for distribution; a corporation is usually prohibited from paying a dividend out of its capital. Distribution to shareholders may be in cash or, if the corporation has a dividend reinvestment plan, the amount can be paid by the issue of further shares or by share repurchase. In some cases, the distribution may be of assets.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Loblaw Companies</span> Canadian food retailer

Loblaw Companies Limited is a Canadian retailer encompassing corporate and franchise supermarkets operating under 22 regional and market-segment banners, as well as pharmacies, banking and apparel. Loblaw operates a private label program that includes grocery and household items, clothing, baby products, pharmaceuticals, cellular phones, general merchandise and financial services. Loblaw is the largest Canadian food retailer, and its brands include President's Choice, No Name and Joe Fresh. It is controlled by George Weston Limited, a holding company controlled by the Weston family; Galen Weston Jr. is chairman and CEO of both companies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bank of Montreal</span> Canadian financial services company

The Bank of Montreal is a Canadian multinational investment bank and financial services company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BCE Inc.</span> Canadian telecommunications and media company

BCE Inc., an abbreviation of its full name Bell Canada Enterprises Inc., is a publicly traded Canadian holding company for Bell Canada, which includes telecommunications providers and various mass media assets under its subsidiary Bell Media Inc. Founded through a corporate reorganization in 1983, when Bell Canada, Northern Telecom, and other related companies all became subsidiaries of Bell Canada Enterprises Inc., it is one of Canada's largest corporations. The company is headquartered at 1 Carrefour Alexander-Graham-Bell in the Verdun borough of Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

The dividend yield or dividend–price ratio of a share is the dividend per share, divided by the price per share. It is also a company's total annual dividend payments divided by its market capitalization, assuming the number of shares is constant. It is often expressed as a percentage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ovintiv</span> American energy company

Ovintiv Inc. is a hydrocarbon exploration and production company organized in Delaware and headquartered in Denver, United States. It was founded and headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, under its previous name Encana. It was the largest energy company and largest natural gas producer in Canada, before moving to the United States in 2020. The company was rebranded as Ovintiv and relocated to Denver in 2019–20.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Preferred stock</span> Type of stock which may have any combination of features not possessed by common stock

Preferred stock is a component of share capital that may have any combination of features not possessed by common stock, including properties of both an equity and a debt instrument, and is generally considered a hybrid instrument. Preferred stocks are senior to common stock but subordinate to bonds in terms of claim and may have priority over common stock in the payment of dividends and upon liquidation. Terms of the preferred stock are described in the issuing company's articles of association or articles of incorporation.

A royalty trust is a type of corporation, mostly in the United States or Canada, usually involved in oil and gas production or mining. However, unlike most corporations, its profits are not taxed at the corporate level provided a certain high percentage of profits are distributed to shareholders as dividends. The dividends are then taxed as personal income. This system, similar to real estate investment trusts, effectively avoids the double taxation of corporate income.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Torstar</span> Canadian mass media company

Torstar Corporation is a Canadian mass media company which primarily publishes news. In addition to the Toronto Star, its flagship and namesake, Torstar also publishes daily newspapers in Hamilton, Peterborough, Niagara Region, and Waterloo Region In addition to the Metroland Media Group and a minority position on Canadian Press. The corporation was initially established in 1958 to take over operations of the Star from the Atkinson Foundation after a provincial law banned charitable organizations from owning for-profit entities. From 1958 to 2020, the class A shares of Torstar were held by the families of the original Atkinson Foundation trustees. The private investment firm NordStar Capital LP, now owned by Jordan Bitove acquired the company in 2020.

An income trust is an investment that may hold equities, debt instruments, royalty interests or real properties. It is especially useful for financial requirements of institutional investors such as pension funds, and for investors such as retired individuals seeking yield. The main attraction of income trusts, in addition to certain tax preferences for some investors, is their stated goal of paying out consistent cash flows for investors, which is especially attractive when cash yields on bonds are low. Many investors are attracted by the fact that income trusts are not allowed to make forays into unrelated businesses; if a trust is in the oil and gas business, it cannot buy casinos or motion picture studios.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Manulife</span> Canadian multinational insurance company and financial services provider

Manulife Financial Corporation is a Canadian multinational insurance company and financial services provider headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. The company operates in Canada and Asia as "Manulife" and in the United States primarily through its John Hancock Financial division. As of December 2021, the company employed approximately 38,000 people and had 119,000 agents under contract, and has CA$1.4 trillion in assets under management and administration. Manulife at one point serviced over 26 million customers worldwide.

Trader Corporation is a Canadian technology company based in Toronto specializing in classified automotive advertising. The company's flagship product is AutoTrader, an online marketplace for buying and selling new and used vehicles. The company is owned by private equity firm Thoma Bravo. The company was originally a part of Trader Classified Media, which was founded in 1987 by John MacBain. Trader Corporation’s current CEO and President is Sebastian Baldwin.

The Dogs of the Dow is an investment strategy popularized by Michael B. O'Higgins in a 1991 book and his Dogs of the Dow website.

Yellow Pages Group (YPG) is a Canadian directory publisher. YPG published its first directory in 1908. YPG is the incumbent directory publisher in Québec, Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta, British Columbia, the Territories and Atlantic Canada. YPG publishes four regional community directories in Saskatchewan.

Pengrowth Energy Corporation was a Canadian oil and natural gas company based in Calgary, Alberta. Established in 1988 by Calgary entrepreneur James S Kinnear, it was one of the largest of the Canadian royalty trusts ("Canroys"), with a market capitalization of US$4.12 billion at the end of 2007. Its assets were approximately evenly distributed between oil and natural gas.

The dividend payout ratio is the fraction of net income a firm pays to its stockholders in dividends:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Canaccord Genuity</span> Canadian financial company

Canaccord Genuity Group Inc. is a global, full-service investment banking and financial services company that specializes in wealth management and brokerage in capital markets. It is the largest independent investment dealer in Canada. The firm focuses on growth companies, with operations in 10 countries worldwide and the ability to list companies on 10 stock exchanges. Canaccord Genuity, the international capital markets division, is based in Canada, with offices in the US, the UK, France, Germany, Ireland, Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Dubai, Australia, and Barbados.

In finance, a dividend future is an exchange-traded derivative contract that allows investors to take positions on future dividend payments. Dividend futures can be on a single company, a basket of companies, or on an Equity index. They settle on the amount of dividend paid by the company, the basket of companies, or the index during the period of the contract.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NEO Exchange</span> Canadian Stock Exchange

The NEO Exchange is a Canadian Tier 1 stock exchange for the innovation economy, bringing together investors and capital raisers. Fully operational since 2015, and acquired by Cboe Global Markets in 2022, NEO provides access to trading across all Canadian-listed securities. NEO lists companies and investment products seeking an internationally recognized stock exchange.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Altus Group</span> Companies based in Toronto

Altus Group Limited provides software, and independent advisory services to the global commercial real estate (CRE) industry through its two core business segments: Altus Analytics and CRE Consulting. The company is headquartered in Toronto, Canada and employs approximately 2,200 employees with operations in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific.It is a public company, with its shares listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol AIF, and Altus Group’s market capitalization is around $2 billion as of the end of 2020. For fiscal 2019, the company had annual revenues of C$567 million and C$88.1 million in adjusted EBITDA.

References

  1. "Reasons for Selection, 2009 Canada's Top 100 Employers Competition".
  2. Robin Wauters. "Yellow Media Sells Vertical Media Publishing Subsidiary for 745 million in Cash." TechCrunch, March 25, 2011.
  3. Dobby, Christine (May 14, 2014). "Once staggering under $2B in debt, Yellow Media looks to ride brand recognition to new growth". Financial Post. Retrieved February 7, 2018.
  4. John Heinzl. "How not to invest in 2013." The Globe and Mail, December 21, 2012.
  5. John Heinzl. "Yellow Media's dividend under the microscope." The Globe and Mail, March 24, 2011
  6. Todd Johnson. "Risk or Reward: What's Behind Yellow Media's 17% Dividend Yield." Seeking Alpha, June 2, 2011
  7. John Shmuel. "Yellow Media shares plummet after dividend cut". Financial Post, August 4, 2011.