Topic: Dividend Stocks

BANK OF MONTREAL $82 – Toronto symbol BMO

BANK OF MONTREAL $82 (Toronto symbol BMO; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 649.0 million; Market cap: $53.2 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.5; Dividend yield: 3.8%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.bmo.com) is Canada’s fourth-largest bank, with $586.8 billion of assets.

In July 2011, the bank paid $4.1 billion for Milwaukee-based Marshall & Ilsley. The move doubled the size of its U.S. retail banking business, which now supplies 15% of its total earnings. Thanks to cost cuts and an improving U.S.

economy, this division will likely earn $686 million in fiscal 2014, up 8.7% from 2013. The bank aims to raise that to at least $750 million in 2015.

Bank of Montreal is also using acquisitions to expand its wealth management division, which now accounts for 18% of its earnings.

It recently paid $1.3 billion for U.K.-based wealth management firm F&C Asset Management, which sells investment services to individuals and institutional clients, such as pension plans and insurance companies.

Integration costs will likely offset the extra earnings from F&C in the first year. But the purchase doubled the bank’s assets under management, half of which are outside of North America.

Thanks to these new businesses and stronger earnings at its Canadian banking operations, Bank of Montreal’s earnings probably gained 5.1% in 2014, to $6.62 a share from $6.30 in 2013. The stock trades at 12.4 times that estimate. The $3.12 dividend yields 3.8%.

Bank of Montreal is a buy.

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