Telus Corp (T.TO)

Dividend will probably be cut, but it'll still be a nice dividend. Liked it at the start of the year, but some assumptions don't come to fruition. Uptick in wireless and less competitive landscape haven't happened. 

You have to ask yourself if you still like the stock? And he does. Look at the journey of INTC as an example. If your conviction goes from a high of 90% to, say, 80%, you can trim.

It's OK if things don't always go your way on a position. Sometimes you have to take action, and other times you don't.

He's worried about the dividend, too; cutting it would put them in a much better position. Payout ratio very high. Issues with leverage. Trying to divest various non-core operations. Telus Health doing well, but telco sector is challenged.

His firm has a small position. They're holding on and doing more homework. Bought lots of things that seemed to make sense, but weren't integrated properly. Asset base is great, just not performing well financially.

New CEO on July 1 -- very astute, high calibre, ran CIBC. Expect lots of changes, and those should be positive. Dividend may be cut, investors who own just for the dividend may sell, others will applaud the move, and stock may actually rally.

Long term, its assets have value. Stock's been cut in half from highs of 2022. Government has really hamstrung companies on network sharing. There's been competition. New CEO could be transformational. 

Stock's really washed out. Even if dividend is cut, still has a solid yield. Yield is 9.87%.

They've done well building non-core assets, so their dividend wasn't sustainable long-term. In this space, he prefers Rogers.

He owns no communications stocks based on the macro view. Slow-growth sector, at best. Good dividends, but they are at risk.

If he were the new CEO coming in, the dividend would be high in the pecking order of ways to restructure the company. If you need a tax-loss, a perfect candidate. If it then pops up, so be it. Much better fish to fry.

BCE provides the cautionary tale. If things don't improve, Telus's dividend could be at risk. When you see a dividend that looks too good to be true, your spidey senses should tingle.

He owns no telcos, all are facing price and volume headwinds.

Its technicals look a bit rough and the risk/reward is less attractive today. The payout ratio is over 200% and it has lots of debt and competition. It's making a base so if it falls below that, sell.

He owns Rogers, instead. Telus is a good operator, but have stumbled along the way. Problem is, the dividend takes up all their free cash flow. So, can they grow into that huge 8.5% dividend distribution and pay down some debt and leave net cash on the balance sheet? Not sure if there will be a dividend cut, like BCE did.

Pricing pressure in the sector. Doesn't see appetite for another big telecom merger anytime soon. Any turnaround wouldn't happen on a dime, would base for a while.

In the sector, he'd rather look at BCE or RCI.B.

It had a bounce but is still down and has been in a downward trend for a long time. If it goes above $21 then you could say the trend is over, but it has to prove itself. There are better dividend paying stocks.

He picked it for asset sales and balance sheet repair, but nothing's really happened. New CEO could cut dividend. Still a great stock and a good place for new $$ today. You'll get a path to growth eventually.

Balance sheet is slowly slipping away, so it's paying the dividend out of capital. With new CEO, you're getting a "money man" replacing an "operations" person. Suspects he'll cut dividend further and get company set up for growth.

He's been in this job for 40 years, and every time a company cuts the dividend there are consequences. Not sure you want to stick around for that. Broken for a long time. Move on. If you don't own it, look elsewhere.

They are not happy with its performance but he likes the dividend. His strategy is to wait for a meaningful downturn in the market and since Telus tends to hold up better than the market, he would sell then and re deploy the cash.