Updating BCE INC., ENBRIDGE INC. and NEWMONT MINING

Article Excerpt

BCE INC. $44.58 (Toronto symbol BCE; Shares outstanding: 775.9 million; Market cap: $34.8 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Yield: 5.2%; www.bce.ca) has gained in response to U.S.-based Verizon Communications’ (New York symbol VZ) announcement that it will not enter the Canadian wireless market right now (see box below). BCE is Canada’s second-largest wireless carrier, with 7.72 million subscribers. Rogers Communications (Toronto symbol RCI.B) is the largest, with 9.4 million users. Unlike Telus (see box), BCE gets just 28% of its sales and 30% of its earnings from wireless. The rest comes from regular phone services, satellite and Internet TV, and its media division, which owns 30 TV stations, 34 specialty channels and 102 radio stations. This wider range of businesses cuts BCE’s risk, and the steady cash flows from these operations should keep letting it raise its dividend; BCE has increased the payout nine times since December 2008. The annual rate of $2.33 a share yields 5.2%. BCE is still…