COMMENT

A good company. The challenge is that a lot of their construction business is in Western Canada, and they have been hurt because of the oil industry slowing down. If you believe the oil industry is now improving, that should help this company to some extent.

COMMENT

This seems to be in the mode of buying more. You will probably get a dividend increase over time, but they are on the acquisition trail, so they are on the growth mode.

COMMENT

He looked at this about 18 months ago. They were moving from writing cheques in Canada and into more interesting stuff in the US. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out, in the short term anyway. They took a hit and they cut their dividend. The bloom is kind of off this for now. He is not interested. Dividend yield of 5.8%.

COMMENT

Natural gas and oil. He has watched this over the years. The company has done well along with all the rest of them. Good management.

HOLD

A really well-managed natural gas levered company. If you own it, he would continue to Hold.

COMMENT

An insurance and wealth management holding company. Because of its underlying Great West Life (GWO-T), it will be helped by higher interest rates. This will do okay. The stock has moved up a bit. They’ll increase their dividend by about 3%-5% a year.

COMMENT

Not a huge yielder, but a steady grower of income. A great company. Good management team. They have their fingers in a lot of different places. The core business is managing assets, primarily for pension funds, superannuation funds, etc. They put their own money on the line, but they also manage money for other people.

COMMENT

The company has done pretty well. He is not a big believer in gold. Prefers Goldcorp (G-T).

COMMENT

This trades on the price of iron ore which has had a decent move in the last year, but has now kind of rolled over again. Pays a good dividend, and the dividend is sustainable.

DON'T BUY

Owned this years ago, and has no intention of buying again. The stock has done better with uranium and energy prices in general going up, but uranium is uranium. You read in the papers about 60 nuclear plants being built, but that was 6 years ago, and they are still having trouble bringing them on. He would avoid this.

TOP PICK

An independent power producer, producing 1400 MW. The attraction is the growth in offshore wind in Europe where they have 2 projects currently coming on. One is coming on right now, and the other will be coming on in 2017-2018, which will bump their cash flow by 50%-60%. There is potential for pretty big increases in dividends over the next couple of years. In July, they announced that they were doing a strategic review. One family owns 30% of the company, and the question is, do they want out. There is a potential that the assets could be sold. He likes the company long term, because he thinks the dividends are going up. Dividend yield of 4.59%. (Analysts’ price target is $25.60.)

TOP PICK

He picked this because it has the biggest leverage to the US. They have expanded substantially into the US retail. They have more retail branches in the US than they do in Canada. Have built their brand, merging the 2 banks that they bought. They are deposit heavy, so have more deposits than they have loans. As the economy improves in the US, they can make more loans, which is good. If interest rates go up and they can expand their margins, that is even better. Dividend yield of 3.24%. (Analysts’ price target is $66.84.)

TOP PICK

This is down about 13% from its 2016 highs. This is because of self-inflicted stuff. They wrote off the Shomi business they had with Shaw. Hired a new CEO, which he thinks is a good acquisition for them. Also, wrote off the IPTV business, preferring to go with Comcast in the US, so the drain on capital goes away and in the future, they just pay per user. They’ll probably increase their dividend this year, which is the 1st time in a couple of years. Dividend yield of 3.65%. (Analysts’ price target is $57.38.)