Topic: Dividend Stocks

ROYAL BANK OF CANADA $59 – Toronto symbol RY

ROYAL BANK OF CANADA $59 (Toronto symbol RY; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 1.4 billion; Market cap: $82.6 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.3; Dividend yield: 4.3%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.rbc.com) is Canada’s largest bank, with $867.5 billion of assets.

Royal recently paid $3.7 billion for Ally Financial’s Canadian operations. This business mainly provides car loans through over 1,600 dealerships across the country. It also offers no-fee savings accounts and consumer and business loans.

If you exclude unusual items, such as the cost of integrating this business, Royal earned $2.0 billion in the quarter ended April 30, 2013. That’s up 13.4% from $1.7 billion a year earlier. Earnings per share rose 14.2%, to $1.29 from $1.13, on fewer shares outstanding. The Ally business contributed $12 million to Royal’s latest earnings. As well, more of Royal’s borrowers are repaying their loans on time. The bank set aside $288 million for potential bad loans, down 17.2% from $348 million a year earlier.

Revenue rose 12.2%, to $7.8 billion from $6.9 billion. Revenue at Royal’s main retail banking division (which supplies 41% of the bank’s overall revenue) rose 5.6%, as the Ally purchase and strong loan demand in Canada offset lower loan volumes in the Caribbean. Revenue from securities trading (20%) rose just 0.4%, as lower trading volumes offset higher fees from corporate lending.

Royal’s other divisions also preformed well. Revenue from wealth management (17%) rose 10.3%, as rising stock prices pushed up the value of this business’s assets under administration. Insurance revenue (16%) jumped 34.6%, mainly due to gains on this division’s investment portfolio. The investor and treasury services business’s revenue (6%) soared 60.3%, because Royal purchased 50% of a joint venture that it didn’t already own.

The stock trades at 10.8 times the bank’s projected fiscal 2013 earnings of $5.47 a share. The $2.52 dividend yields 4.3%.

Royal Bank is a buy.

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