Topic: Dividend Stocks

AGRIUM INC. $99 – Toronto symbol AGU

AGRIUM INC. $99 (Toronto symbol AGU; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Resources sector; Shares outstanding: 143.7 million; Market cap: $14.2 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.9; Dividend yield 3.3%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.agrium.com) has suspended operations at its Vanscoy, Saskatchewan, potash mine because the main hoist system failed. Agrium will use the shutdown to speed up its plan to increase the mine’s capacity.

The company expects the outage to cost $40 million (all amounts except share price and market cap in U.S. dollars).

To put that in context, Agrium earned $625 million, or $4.34 a share, in the second quarter of 2014. That’s down 16.0% from $744 million, or $5.00 a share, a year earlier. Record earnings from Agrium’s retail stores, which sell fertilizers and seeds to farmers in North America, South America and Australia, offset lower bulk fertilizer prices.

Agrium is a buy.

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