While Sun Media is closing 11 newsrooms across the country and Glacier Media Group, owners of the Chilliwack Times, Langley Advance, Abbotsford Times and Maple Ridge/Pitt Meadows Times is coming back down from a brief increase in the value of its shares at the end of June.
Glacier Media’s share price has been taking a slow but steady beating over the last year, dropping from over $2.00 a share to less than $1.60 in the last weeks of June when it rebounded slightly on the announcement that Glacier had partnered with SocialShoppe.com then dropped again last week.
Forbes is reporting the Glacier’s shares crossed the five percent yield mark while dropping back down from its short increase of two weeks ago.
[excerpt] In trading on Thursday, shares of Glacier Media Inc (Toronto: GVC) were yielding above the 5% mark based on its quarterly dividend (annualized to $0.08), with the stock changing hands as low as $1.57 on the day. Dividends are particularly important for investors to consider, because historically speaking dividends have provided a considerable share of the stock market’s total return.
In general, dividend amounts are not always predictable and tend to follow the ups and downs of profitability at each company. In the case of Glacier Media Inc, looking at the history chart for GVC below can help in judging whether the most recent dividend is likely to continue, and in turn whether it is a reasonable expectation to expect a 5% annual yield.
[source]
.
.
In February Norman Rothery of the Globe and Mail reported that Glacier was a media stock worth buying because in his words, ” the value seems right.”
“Glacier Media’s stock has basically been given up for dead. It keeled over from just over $4 per share in the spring of 2008 and hit the floor just below $1.50 per share a year later. Since then it staggered up a bit and was recently spotted at $1.85 per share. Many days, there are fewer than half a dozen trades in the stock.”
“To be sure, there is risk. The company’s strategy of buying media properties – mostly community newspapers – and betting it can turn them around is far from an assured success. But it’s encouraging to note that management has a big stake in the firm’s future. Its CEO is a principal of Madison Venture Corp., which owns 34 per cent of Glacier Media.”
In a press release issued June 27, Glacier Media’s President of Lower Mainland Publishing, Alvin Brouwer, said,
““We are very proud to have SocialShopper as part of the Glacier family. We have specific ideas on how to differentiate this space and now with the size and caliber of SocialShopper’s customer base combined with our own we have a significant position to build on.”
It is the third major attempt that Lower Mainland publishing has made to add relevance to their products in the digital world in recent years. The first attempt was to add a business directory to all of their websites and charge for advertising in it. The next was a technological change which allowed readers to scan some newspaper ads from the physical newspaper itself and thereby gain access to the advertisers’ websites.
For more on Glacier Media Group click here.