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Topic: Dividend Stocks

TD is a dividend leader

Like most Canadian banks, TD has consistently raised its dividend over the last 20 years. The bank’s continued success at finding new areas for revenue growth should sustain those increases.

TORONTO-DOMINION BANK $60 (Toronto symbol TD; Income Growth Dividend Payer Portfolio, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 1.9 billion; Market cap: $114.0 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 3.6; Dividend yield: 3.7%; Dividend Sustainability Rating: Highest; www.td.com) gets 62% of its earnings from Canadian retail banking; that operation serves 15 million customers through 1,157 branches.

In the U.S., the bank operates 1,264 branches along the East Coast, from Maine to Florida. This business supplies 26% of its earnings. The remaining 12% comes from TD’s wholesale banking business; it offers securities trading and investment banking services such as stock underwriting.

Like most Canadian banks, TD has long history of dividends: in the past 20 years, the bank has raised its dividend by 809.1%. The current annual rate of $2.20 a share yields 3.9%. In its latest fiscal year, TD paid out just 43.4% of its earnings, well within its target range of 40% to 50%.

TD’s revenue jumped 32.6%, from $23.7 billion in 2011 to $31.4 billion in 2015 (fiscal years end October 31).


TD Bank

Earnings rose 39.0%, from $6.3 billion in 2011 to $8.7 billion in 2015. Per-share earnings gained 34.4%, from $3.43 to $4.61, on more shares outstanding (all per-share amounts adjusted for a two-for-one stock split in February 2014).

Several big acquisitions have driven TD’s increase in revenue and earnings. These include its April 2011 purchase of Chrysler Financial for $6.3 billion. This business lends to buyers of Chrysler vehicles in Canada and the U.S.

In December 2011, TD acquired MBNA’s Canadian credit card operations from Bank of America for $6.8 billion. MBNA is Canada’s largest MasterCard issuer, so the purchase helped diversify TD’s credit card business beyond its Visa cards.

In March 2013, the bank paid $5.8 billion for retailer Target Corp.’s U.S. credit card portfolio. It also became the exclusive issuer of Target-branded credit cards in the U.S. TD and Target recently agreed to extend this partnership to March 2025.

On January 1, 2014, TD became the primary credit card issuer for the popular Aeroplan loyalty program, run by Aimia Inc. (Toronto symbol AIM). Aimia is a recommendation of Stock Pickers Digest, our newsletter focused on aggressive investing.

The program’s 5 million members collect Aeroplan miles from participating companies; they can exchange those points for flights, car rentals, hotel rooms and merchandise.

TD’s loan portfolio remains strong. As of July 31, 2016, bad loans represented just 0.48% of the total outstanding. Loans to oil and gas producers were less than 1% of the overall, so losses due to falling crude prices have been small.

The bank continues to invest heavily in online and mobile banking services. Even with these outlays, TD’s efficiency ratio (non-interest expenses divided by revenue—the lower, the better) improved to 52.6% in the latest quarter from 53.6% a year earlier.

The bank’s earnings per share should rise 5.4%, to $4.86, in 2016. TD trades at just 12.3 times that estimate.

Toronto-Dominion Bank is a buy.

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