Bill Shaw

Market. The markets are not cheap. Forward earnings on the TSX and the S&P are at 24X plus. As a value manager, he likes to buy stocks a lot cheaper than that. It makes it even more crucial to look at securities you are buying today, making sure, if a value investor, that they are indeed cheap. He still sees some growth, maybe at the 1.5X or 2X level. If Mr. Trump gets his policies put in place pretty quickly, we might see a little more tepid pace than the 3%-4% type level.

This is fairly valued at around $200. Management is pretty strong and it has an OK dividend, but operating efficiencies and ratios have improved significantly over time, and how much more can they get out of it at this point. Fully valued. Dividend yield of 1%.

Had a great quarter. All the banks are likely to come out with fairly reasonable earnings over the next couple of days. They are going to benefit from a rising interest rate environment. Security prices are a lot higher, so capital markets are doing a lot better. Dividend increases continue and he sees that continuing. (See Top Picks.)

This has had quite a run in the past year. Efficiency ratios are excellent and management is good. Pays a modest dividend. It is fully valued.

A very well-managed REIT. Has a portfolio of basically Walmart anchored tenants for its plazas. Has a good development team in place, so he expects they will continue to see growth. Very reasonable dividend at just over 5%. A name that you could buy over the next several years.

A smaller energy producer. Results have been OK. Most of these names have gotten a bit stretched in terms of valuation.

This has underperformed. They did a stock issue that investors were not too happy with. In terms of communication, this company has not been the best. There have been rumours of potential activists investors coming in, but the company has stated that there is no one really interested. Thinks it is going to be a “show me” story. They have great technical expertise and have been able to increase production in the past.

Well-managed. Its properties are pretty decent. Retail REITs are not performing as well, so he prefers more diversified REITs. The yield is north of 8%.

A very well-run Canadian retailer. He likes what they have been doing. It always seems very expensive. He would like to see a bit of a pullback, which he doesn’t expect to see for a while. Earnings have come in above expectations, and store sales seem to be relatively okay.

He really likes this. The Spectra acquisition will close, and as always, they are going to have to integrate it and get the synergies out of it. Very well-managed. So far everything is working favourably for them. Recently increased the dividend, and he expects to continue to see modest increases over the next several years. He can see this easily getting up to the $60 level. This is a growth story.

This is a great investment. It has a reasonable dividend yield of about 6%. Well-managed. Basically office properties. It has exposure in Calgary, but the good news is that oil prices seem to be on the rebound. The bad news is that we are starting to see more development for office space coming up, so there may be a little bit of pressure. Thinks this is going to be a steady Eddie performer on a go forward basis.

He likes this. His focus is on dividend and growth, so the dividend yield is fine. It has been growing fairly nicely. Dividend yield of 6.2%.

Brookfield has generally done a good job with most of its companies, but this one has fallen off the radar a bit. It has a decent yield. There will be some projects fed into it from Brookfield over time, but he feels there are better opportunities elsewhere.

He doesn’t see this being a take-out candidate at these prices. Their properties are average, maybe on the smaller size. It has performed reasonably well. Yield of 5.2%.

The effect of interest rates on REITs? Some people look at REITs as bond proxies, so they are going to be sensitive to interest rates. The key thing is to look at each REIT individually. You need to look at the duration of their mortgages that underlie the REIT and their financing. Most of them have gone long at 7-10 years, which means they have locked in current rates. The biggest concern is if we have a sharp move up where there might be some competition from bonds. If a longer-term investor, and you think rates are going to stay relatively flat for the next 2-3 years, the REIT sector is going to be a steady Eddie, and you are probably looking at dividend returns of 5%-6% and capital returns of another 4%-5%, so you are probably looking at 10%-12% compounded.