Payout Boost: Telus lifts its dividend

Article Excerpt

TELUS CORP. $42 (Toronto symbol T; Income Growth Dividend Payer Portfolio, Utilities sector; Shares outstanding: 592.0 million; Market cap: $24.9 billion; Dividend Sustainability Rating: Highest; Dividend yield: 4.6%; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.0; www.telus.com) provides a wide range of telecommunications services across Canada, including cable television, high-speed Internet, wireless and landline telephone services. With the January 2017 payment, the company will increase its quarterly dividend by 4.3%, to $0.48 a share from $0.46. The new annual rate of $1.92 yields 4.6%. This latest increase is part of Telus’s plan to raise its dividend twice a year for 2017, 2018 and 2019. The company expects the average annual increase to be between 7% and 10%. Telus is a buy. buy…