These updates will enhance your portfolio: Emera Inc., Leon’s Furniture Ltd. and RioCan REIT

Article Excerpt

EMERA INC. $54 is a buy. The company (Toronto symbol EMA; Income Portfolio, Utilities sector; Shares outstanding: 249.4 million; Market cap: $13.5 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.4; Dividend yield: 4.7%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.emera.com) owns 100% of Nova Scotia Power, that province’s main electricity supplier. It also owns 100% of Tampa Electric, which provides electricity to more than 765,000 customers. Its other interests include power plants and natural gas pipelines in the U.S. and the Caribbean. Emera also owns the Maritime Link undersea cable, which will transmit electricity from the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric dam in Labrador to Nova Scotia. However, the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns suspended work on the Muskrat Falls project in March 2020. Construction has now resumed, and the facility should begin operating in the fourth quarter of 2021. The delay could prompt regulators to cut Emera’s rate of return on the Maritime Link. Even so, that should not affect the company’s plan to increase its dividend by 4% to 5% each year through 2022…