State Street rewards investors

Article Excerpt

STATE STREET CORP. $63 is a buy. The company (New York symbol STT; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 367.6 million; Market cap: $23.2 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.1; Dividend yield: 4.0%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.statestreet.com) sells accounting and administrative services to operators of mutual funds and pension plans. State Street recently agreed to pay $3.5 billion for the investor services division of Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. It provides custody, administration and other services to mutual fund operators and financial institutions. Eliminating overlapping operations will cut $260 million from the company’s annual costs by the end of the third year. Thanks to those expected savings and its strong capital position, the company is now raising your quarterly dividend by 10.5%, to $0.63 a share from $0.57. The new annual rate of $2.52 yields 4.0%. State Street is a buy. buy. …