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Transcontinental: profit up, despite a decline in traditional activities. A sign is visible at TC Transcontinental, a printing, packaging, media and publishing services company located in Montreal, on Friday, March 7, 2025. (Photo: The Canadian Press / Christinne Muschi) Transcontinental is experiencing a slowdown in its traditional activities, but the printer says it was able to hold its own in the third quarter, thanks to point-of-sale marketing activities. The Montreal-based printer announced on Wednesday a net income of $36.9 million for the quarter ended July 26, up from $13.0 million a year ago. This represents a profit of 44 cents per share, compared with 16 cents per share last year. The sale of two buildings and recent acquisitions helped generate a profit, according to the company. The rollout of raddar - a printed flyer distributed by Canada Post - across the country in mid-June also had positive effects, it added. Transcontinental's revenues reached $306.0 million in the third quarter, up from $294.9 million in the same period last year. Before the results were published, analysts had expected adjusted earnings per share of 38 cents and revenues of $296.7 million. The company continues to expect, for its full fiscal year, a decline in its traditional activities, including book printing, which should be offset by growth in point-of-sale marketing and specialty products activities. Transcontinental's stock was down 14 cents, or 2.67%, at $5.10 on the Toronto Stock Exchange late Wednesday morning.

Transcontinental Q3 earnings call highlights. September 9, 2026 Key points. * Transcontinental reported solid fiscal Q3 results: Revenue increased 3.8%, adjusted EBITDA rose 4.1% to C$60.9 million, and adjusted EPS climbed 18.5% to C$0.32. Management remains confident that full-year adjusted EBITDA will be roughly flat year over year. * Retail services and specialty products drove growth. Segment revenue rose 7.1%, including 38% growth in the ISM and specialty-products business, supported by acquisitions, approximately 7% organic growth and cost synergies. The company said ISM margins are improving and its acquisition pipeline remains strong. * Raddar's national rollout expanded reach but future impact remains uncertain. The retail-media platform now reaches more than 11 million households, or about three-quarters of Canadian households, and generated a few million dollars of quarterly revenue. Transcontinental also reduced net leverage to 2.06 times adjusted EBITDA and expects it to reach about 1.75 times by fiscal year-end. * MarketBeat previews the top five stocks to own by October 1st. Transcontinental TSE: TCL.A reported higher revenue, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted earnings per share in its fiscal 2026 third quarter, supported by recent in-store marketing and specialty products acquisitions, cost-reduction initiatives and the national rollout of its raddar retail-media distribution platform. Chief Executive Officer Sam Bendavid said the company's improved third-quarter performance reinforced management's confidence that it can finish fiscal 2026 in line with its outlook. Management continues to expect adjusted EBITDA for the full year to be in line with the prior year. Quarterly revenue rose 3.8% from a year earlier, while adjusted EBITDA increased 4.1% to C$60.9 million. Adjusted earnings per share from continuing operations climbed 18.5% to C$0.32, compared with C$0.27 in the prior-year period. Chief Financial Officer Donald LeCavalier said revenue growth was driven primarily by acquisitions in the company's in-store marketing and specialty products, or ISM, business, partly offset by lower volumes in traditional operations. Cost-reduction efforts and acquisitions also supported EBITDA, though lower traditional-printing volumes limited the gain. Retail services and printing growth. Revenue in Transcontinental's retail services and printing segment increased 7.1% to C$233.3 million. The gain reflected recent acquisitions and the nationwide expansion of raddar, partly offset by lower traditional flyer-printing volumes. The ISM and specialty-products business recorded revenue growth of 38% to C$99.7 million. While acquisitions accounted for a substantial portion of the increase, Bendavid and LeCavalier said the business delivered roughly 7% organic revenue growth during the quarter. Segment adjusted EBITDA rose 2.3% to C$49.4 million. Management said the acquired businesses and cost initiatives helped profitability, but lower traditional flyer volumes and the changing revenue mix weighed on margins. LeCavalier noted that ISM margins are improving but remain below those of the company's flyer and newspaper activities. Bendavid said integration of recent ISM acquisitions is proceeding ahead of plan. The company has consolidated operations into existing platforms and is capturing procurement and operational synergies that are lifting margins by "a couple of percentage points," he said. Management described the acquisition pipeline in ISM as strong and said the business could potentially double in size over time. Raddar rollout reaches most Canadian households. Transcontinental completed the nationwide raddar rollout in mid-June, expanding distribution from about 5 million to more than 11 million households in one step. Bendavid said raddar is now delivered weekly to approximately three out of four Canadian households. Discover more Stock market holidays ETF screener tool The company said advertiser interest has been encouraging, including from grocery, pharmacy and home-improvement retailers. The platform generated a revenue contribution in the third quarter, and LeCavalier said the impact totaled a few million dollars as Transcontinental took on distribution across Canada through Canada Post that had previously been handled by other parties. However, management said it was too early to quantify the longer-term profitability and revenue-growth effects of raddar. LeCavalier said the rollout had no material bottom-line impact during the quarter and did not require significant incremental investment in the period. The company may consider additional technology investments in future years to support the platform, depending on opportunities. Books and education timing expected to reverse. Revenue in the books and education segment declined 5.7% to C$73.1 million from C$77.5 million a year earlier. Adjusted EBITDA fell C$1.1 million to C$20.5 million, reflecting a temporary volume shift and foreign-exchange effects. LeCavalier said the revenue decline was largely tied to the timing of education orders, including supplier-delivery issues, and management expects the shortfall to be recovered in the fourth quarter. He added that the company is encouraged by book-printing demand, saying it has replaced business from a prior-year one-time project with work expected to recur annually. Management said the company's fiscal year ends Oct. 25 and acknowledged that the timing of the final week could affect results. Still, LeCavalier reiterated confidence in delivering year-over-year flat adjusted EBITDA for the full year, supported in part by expected normalization in education sales. Debt reduction and capital allocation. Cash flow from operating activities totaled C$25 million in the quarter, down from C$36.5 million a year earlier, primarily because of higher tax payments. Capital expenditures were C$19.8 million, and management maintained its full-year CapEx expectation of about C$60 million. The sale of two buildings, including the Boucherville warehouse, generated net proceeds of C$36.5 million during the quarter. Net debt to adjusted EBITDA improved to 2.06 times at quarter-end from 2.14 times three months earlier. Management expects the ratio to decline to roughly 1.75 times by fiscal year-end, largely due to a seasonal working-capital improvement in the fourth quarter. Transcontinental has generated C$60 million from real-estate monetization since launching the program more than two years ago. It has listed a Montreal building and continues to market a Saint-Hyacinthe property, with management expecting the two sales over the next 12 months could help it reach its original C$100 million target. On capital allocation, LeCavalier said the company's near-term priorities are dividends, potential ISM or education acquisitions, debt repayment and capital expenditures. Management did not provide an outlook for fiscal 2027, saying its immediate focus remains on completing fiscal 2026. About Transcontinental (TSE:TCL.A). Transcontinental, or TC Transcontinental, is a Canadian printer and flexible packaging provider that operates in three segments: packaging, printing, and other. Its packaging segment features the production of different plastic products geared toward consumer goods. Production plants specialize in extrusion, lamination, printing, and converting. The company offers premedia, printing, and distribution services through the printing segment. Publishers, retailers, cataloguers, and marketers are some of the customers who tap TC Transcontinental for these printing solutions. This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest reporting and unbiased coverage. Please send any questions or comments about this story to [email protected]. Before you consider Transcontinental, you'll want to hear this. MarketBeat keeps track of Wall Street's top-rated and best performing research analysts and the stocks they recommend to their clients on a daily basis. MarketBeat has identified the five stocks that top analysts are quietly whispering to their clients to buy now before the broader market catches on... and Transcontinental wasn't on the list. While Transcontinental currently has a Moderate Buy rating among analysts, top-rated analysts believe these five stocks are better buys. A strong long-term portfolio starts with companies that can survive recessions, inflation, changing consumer habits, and shifting market leadership. This report names seven blue-chip stocks across technology, retail, consumer staples, healthcare, networking, sporting goods, and utilities that offer investors a mix of stability, income, growth, and staying power. Continue following MarketBeat

Canada Post and the shuttering of community newspapers. July 23, 2026 · 0 Comments The shuttering of Winnipeg's Community Review means 200,000 households will no longer get the benefit of a free community newspaper delivered to their door. It also means that more than 800 people who deliver the paper and their families will be affected. This is an unforced error that never should have happened. How did Caledon Citizen get here? The answer is complex. First, there is a high degree of concentration in the flyer printing market in Canada. Montreal-based TC Transcontinental enjoys the dominant position in the marketplace thanks, in part, to a 2012 Competition Bureau-approved asset swap. Second, municipal and provincial politicians have passed environmental regulations, however well-intentioned, have unintended consequences. Former Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante passed a municipal bylaw that led to the end of distribution of Publisac (a plastic bag with flyers and a community newspaper). Several provinces, including Manitoba, have imposed extended producer responsibility levies on printed newspapers. Ontario's Premier Doug Ford made the wise decision to exempt newspapers from this kind of stealthy journalism job-killing tax in his province. Third, Canada Post is the biggest culprit. TC Transcontinental, which had distributed Publisac door-to-door in Quebec, formed a strategic partnership with Canada Post, which as a Crown corporation was not beholden to municipal bylaws. They bypassed Mayor Plante's new regulation by distributing a curated bundle of flyers called Raddar through the national postal service. Unlike Publisac, Raddar did not include a community newspaper. On the sidelines of this saga, news publisher Métro Média and its more than 30 hyperlocal publications - including 17 print newspapers - shut down. In partnership with Canada Post, TC Transcontinental recently expanded its Raddar offering across Canada. It is understood that Canada Post - which has a mandate to "charge postage rates that are fair and reasonable" - is offering TC Transcontinental rates below what it is offering to community newspapers. To its own benefit, the Crown corporation has effectively shut community newspapers - their private sector rivals - out of flyer distribution, lessening competition substantially in that market. This is not the first time community newspaper publishers have felt the squeeze of Canada Post in the flyer distribution market. As of January 2024, community newspapers with commercial inserts were no longer exempt from Canada Post's Consumers' Choice program, which allows Canadians to opt out of receiving 'junk mail'. Canada Post made that decision without stakeholder consultation or economic/social impact analysis and failed to recognize that community newspapers - with or without an insert - are not 'junk mail'; they are a social good. The juxtaposition of the shuttering of Winnipeg's Community Review at the same time as the revelation of $30.8 million in bonuses at Canada Post has not been lost on community newspaper publishers across Canada. What should Ottawa do about it? First, Joël Lightbound, the Minister responsible for Canada Post, should ensure the Crown corporation is treating community newspapers fairly and offering them comparable pricing to what it offers to TC Transcontinental. Second, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage should conduct hearings into the role Canada Post can play in the sustainability of community newspapers - ensuring the relationship is one of partnership, rather than predatory and parasitic. When a community loses a newspaper, like Winnipeg's Community Review or Métro Média's publications in Quebec, the information vacuum can lead to people getting their news from less than reliable sources - like AI and social media - which can create division that drives people apart. Without a check on local government, corruption, mismanagement, and wasteful spending often flourish, which can result in higher municipal taxes and borrowing costs. It was not foreign Big Tech monopolists like Google and Meta that caused Manitoba's largest community newspaper to shutter. It was Canada Post. And it's not like Caledon Citizen weren't warned... Thirty years ago, in his review of Canada Post's mandate, George Radwanski recommended that postal service get out of delivering unaddressed junk mail (i.e., flyers), concluding that the Crown corporation engaged in inappropriate practices that created unfair competition for private businesses like community newspapers. As a former Toronto Star editor-in-chief, Radwanski knew the news business. He noted that Canada Post was actively siphoning advertising revenue away from the news industry and adroitly cautioned that the state-granted mail delivery monopoly should not be in the business of crippling the financial health of newspapers. A healthy democracy demands a healthy community news media ecosystem. Let's level the playing field and restore competition in the flyer distribution market before more community newspapers shutter. Paul Deegan is president and chief executive officer of News Media Canada