Best Consumer Service Stocks To Buy Right Now

Best Consumer Service Stocks To Buy Right Now: Brookfield Infrastructure Partners LP (BIP)

Brookfield Infrastructure Partners L.P. engages in the utilities, transportation and energy, and timber businesses. It operates through Utilities, Transport, Energy, and Timber segments. The company operates a port facility that exports metallurgical and thermal coal mined in the central Bowen Basin region of Queensland, Australia; approximately 9,900 kilometers of electricity transmission lines in North and South America; and approximately 2.5 million electricity and natural gas connections in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Colombia. It is also involved in the transportation of freight, bulk commodities, and passengers through a platform of approximately 5,100 kilometers of tracks in southwest region of Western Australia; 3,200 kilometres of toll roads in Brazil and Chile; and approximately 30 port terminals primarily in Europe. In addition, the company provides energy transportation, distribution, and storage services through 15,500 kilometers of natural gas transm ission lines primarily in the United States. Further, it engages in the timberland operations with approximately 343,000 net acres of freehold timberlands located in the coastal region of British Columbia, Canada; and the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Brookfield Infrastructure Partners Limited serves as a general partner of Brookfield Infrastructure Partners L.P. The company was founded in 2007 and is based in Toronto, Canada. Brookfield Infrastructure Partners L.P. is a subsidiary of Brookfield Asset Management Inc.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By David Fried]

  Brookfield Infrastructure Partners (BIP) owns and operates a cornucopia of infrastructure—premier utilities, transport, and energy in North and South America, Australia, and Europe.

• [By John Heinzl]

  Brookfield I! nfrastructure (BIP) was one of six stocks I discussed in a recent column about companies that are poised to raise their dividends. Unlike the others, however, BIP isn't a corporation, but a limited partnership, and its distributions—they aren't technically dividends—are treated differently for tax purposes.

• [By Saibus Research]

  WY and the majority of the timber, forest and paper products companies have a track record of unimpressive returns on capital, cyclical revenue and profit trends, heavy use of capital expenditures, and significant environmental regulation. We also think that WY's conversion to a REIT was a mistake. Morningstar Investment Research's Timber, Forest and Paper Products analyst Dan Rohr said it best when he rated WY and its Timber REIT peers Rayonier (RYN), Potlatch (PCH) and Plum Creek (PCL) as not possessing any economic moat. That probably explains why we only have an ancillary exposure to this industry for our proprietary portfolio based on our holdings in Brookfield Infrastructure (BIP) and Cintas (CTAS). Brookfield's Timber segment only accounts for 5% of its Fund Flows from operations and Cintas's document management business is suffering from reduced prices on recycled paper. At least Cintas Document Management only accounts for 8% of Cintas's revenue.

• [By Matt DiLallo]

  Over the weekend Brookfield Asset Management (NYSE: BAM  ) announced that it and its affiliate Brookfield Infrastructure Partners (NYSE: BIP  ) are selling the Longview Timber business to Weyerhaeuser (NYSE: WY  ) for $2.65 billion. The deal consisted of 645,000 acres of high-quality timberlands in the Pacific Northwest. While these timber assets are located in the U.S., as you will see this deal is all about China.

source from Top Stocks For 2015:http://www.topstocksblog.com/best-consumer-service-stocks-to-buy-right-now-2.html