Two utilities: 1 for income, 1 for value

Article Excerpt

Canadian Utilities and parent company ATCO give investors two ways to buy essentially the same businesses. Still, income seekers should pick Canadian Utilities, while value investors should go with ATCO. CANADIAN UTILITIES LTD. (Toronto symbols CU [class A non-voting] $39 and CU.X [class B voting] $39; Income Portfolio, Utilities sector; Shares outstanding: 270.4 million; Market cap: $10.5 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.9; Dividend yield: 3.7%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.canadianutilities.com) distributes electricity and natural gas in Alberta and Australia. It also operates 15 power plants, in Canada (13) and Australia (2). ATCO Ltd. (see right) owns 52.8% of the company. Between 2017 and 2019, Canadian Utilities plans to invest $3.8 billion in new regulated projects. It will also spend $1.3 billion on new facilities backed by long-term contracts. Those investments include a 35-year agreement to build and operate a new 500 km transmission line from Edmonton to Fort McMurray, Alberta. Canadian Utilities owns 50% of this project, which is due to begin operations in…