These cyclicals give you steady dividends

Article Excerpt

FINNING INTERNATIONAL INC. $26 (Toronto symbol FTT; Cyclical-Growth Payer Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares o/s: 168.2 million; Market cap: $4.4 billion; Dividend yield: 2.8%; Dividend Sustainability Rating: Above Average; www.finning.com) sells and services Caterpillar-brand heavy equipment. Its main customers are in the oil, mining and construction industries. The company’s revenue in the three months ended December 31, 2016, fell 3.0%, to $1.49 billion from $1.54 billion a year earlier. Low commodity prices continued to hurt demand for heavy equipment. Since 2014, in response to weaker revenue, Finning has eliminated 25% of its workforce and consolidated some of its operations. Thanks to the savings, the company earned $0.05 a share (or a total of $9 million) in the latest quarter. That’s a big improvement over its year-earlier loss of $1.82 a share (or $309 million). If you exclude all unusual items, earnings in the quarter jumped 21.7%, to $0.28 a share from $0.23. Finning is in a strong position to profit from Ottawa’s plan…