Topic: How To Invest

Dividend Advisor Hotline – Friday, September 8, 2023

Article Excerpt

BANK OF MONTREAL, $114.19, Toronto symbol BMO, is a buy. With the August 2023 payment, Bank of Montreal raised your quarterly dividend by 2.8%, to $1.47 a share from $1.43. The new annual rate of $5.88 yields a high 5.1%. On February 1, 2023, the bank completed its acquisition of Bank of the West from France’s BNP Paribas. Bank of the West provides a variety of retail and commercial banking services to over 1.8 million customers in 24 U.S. states, mainly in the Western and Midwestern regions. Bank of Montreal paid $13.8 billion U.S. for this business. Eliminating overlapping operations should let it cut $760 million U.S. from its annual costs in the first year following the deal. To help finance the purchase—and comply with increased capitalization requirements in Canada—Bank of Montreal has sold $6.5 billion of new common shares through public offerings and private placements. Meanwhile, in June 2023, Bank of Montreal paid $160 million U.S. for the Canadian operations of the popular Air Miles…