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TELUS CORP. $21 is a buy. The telecom provider (Toronto symbol T; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Utilities sector; Shares outstanding: 1.4 billion; Market cap: $29.4 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.6; Dividend yield: 7.4%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.telus.com) increased your quarterly dividend by 3.5% with the July 2024 payment. The new annual rate of $1.5564 yields 7.4%. Moreover, Telus plans to raise the annual dividend rate by between 7% and 10% from 2023 through the end of 2025. Telus has now substantially completed a multi-year plan to upgrade its wireless networks to handle 5G signal. It has also upgraded most of its copper-line networks to fibre-optic cable. As a result, the company’s capital spending in 2024 will decline about 8% to $2.6 billion. That should help lift this year’s free cash flow (regular cash flow less maintenance capital spending) by about 24% to $2.2 billion. Telus will probably pay aggregate dividends of $2.5 billion in 2024, for a payout ratio of 114%. That’s above its target…