WHAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR? There have been more than 40 takeovers in the income trust sector since the Tax Fairness Plan threw trusts for a loop about one year ago. What kind of trusts have made the best takeover targets since then, and of the ones that are left, which ones are likely to also be taken over? MORE ABOUT TODAY'S SCREEN We spend a lot of time in this column looking at numbers, but there is no reason we can't do more qualitative screens. For instance, RBC Capital Markets' business trusts analysts believe there are about 19 characteristics that make a trust more likely to be taken over. Last week, the analysts went through the 50 or so business trusts they follow and analyzed takeover characteristics for each one. What we've done here is rank the trusts by how many check marks each one garnered. What takeover characteristics are most important? In the most recent takeovers, RBC has noticed that the targets have featured stable cash flows, strong margins, leading market share, high barriers to entry and potential synergies. ON THE WEB All the Number Crunchers will be archived online with a link to the full tables of data. As usual, suggestions and questions about Number Crunchers are welcome. Just drop me an e-mail or leave a comment on the blog.
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