
TSE:BCE
A great company and did a very good job of taking a lot of costs out. Also, their TV and wireless businesses have grown very nicely. Trading at about 17X earnings with a dividend of almost 4.5%. They can continue to grow their dividends. The big issue is that they have a lot of media assets, and you have to see if they all work out in the end.
Management has done an excellent job turning this company around over the last 5-6 years. A giant in the industry. Very solid cash flows, but valuation has gotten up there. Just raised their dividend by 5%. Trades at EBITDA at about 8.5X, so the valuation is rich. In a world where you have very low interest rates and where a lot of investors want to get off resource stocks, they turn to a large Canadian liquid name; as a result this company has enjoyed a good ride. If you don’t own, buy it on a 10% pullback, but if you do own continue to Hold.
All the telecoms seem to be doing well. He is more favourable to Rogers (RCI.B-T) at this time, given the valuation relative to Telus (T-T) and BCE. You can’t go wrong with this company, but at this level he doesn’t see a tremendous amount of upside. They are doing the right things by taking excess cash and buying back stock and increasing the dividend.
Recently sold it because he thought it was overly expensive. A good, safe yield. There are some CRTC issues but he does not think they are meaningful to the stock price. $50ish is a good re-entry point.