Swapping assets improves their focus

Article Excerpt

Both Great-West and IGM recently exchanged some assets as part of a plan to better concentrate on their main businesses. We like both but still see IGM as the better pick. GREAT-WEST LIFECO INC. $54 is a hold. The company (Toronto symbol GWO; Conservative Growth Payer Portfolio, Finance sector; shares outstanding: 932.1 million; Market cap: $50.3 billion; Dividend yield: 4.5%; Dividend Sustainability Rating: Above Average; www.greatwestlifeco.com) is Canada’s second-largest life insurer after Manulife Financial. Power Corp. (see box) owns 68.1% . With the March 2025 payment, Great-West raised your quarterly dividend by 9.9%, to $0.61 a share from $0.555. The new annual rate of $2.44 yields a high 4.5%. The company continues to benefit from recent acquisitions to sharpen its focus on wealth management and retirement services. Those purchases include the full-service retirement business of U.S.-based Prudential Financial Inc. (New York symbol PRU), acquired in 2022 for $4.35 billion. As well, in November 2023, the company paid $575 million to IGM (see below) for Investment Planning Counsel,…