These fast-growing utilities offer high yields

Article Excerpt

PEMBINA PIPELINE $43.06 (Toronto symbol PPL; Shares o/s: 399.0 million; Market cap: $17.2 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Average; Divd. yield: 4.7%; www.pembina.com) owns pipelines that carry almost all of B.C.’s oil and half of Alberta’s conventional oil. Its network also carries 30% of Western Canada’s natural gas liquids (NGLs). Pembina owns extensive facilities to extract, process and store NGLs; it also operates natural-gas processing plants. In the three months ended December 31, 2016, the company’s cash flow rose 4.3%, to $292 million from $280 million. Cash flow per share fell 3.9%, to $0.74 from $0.77 on more shares outstanding. In 2017, Pembina plans to spend $1.9 billion to complete about $4 billion in growth projects. Most of them will begin to add to the company’s cash flow later in the year. Altogether, the new operations should increase Pembina’s cash flow to $2.80 a share for 2017. That’s up 10.2% from $2.54 in 2016. The stock trades at 15.4 times the 2017 estimate. The company…