enbridge

TELUS CORP. $42 (www.telus.com) is paying $1.5 billion for new radio frequencies (or spectrum) covering urban and rural areas in Western Canada, Ontario and Quebec. The price is slightly more than the $1.49 billion, or $2.41 a share, that Telus earned in 2014. However, the company can use the extra spectrum to speed up its wireless networks. That will help it meet growing demand for wireless downloads, as 81% of its subscribers under long-term contracts now use smartphones. Buy. ENBRIDGE INC. $58 (www.enbridge.com) plans to increase the capacity of a proposed pipeline project that will pump crude from oil sands projects in Alberta. It will mainly do this by increasing the diameter of part of the pipeline and boosting another section’s pumping power. These moves will also cut the project’s overall cost by $400 million, from $3.0 billion to $2.6 billion. To put these figures in context, the company earned $1.6 billion, or $1.90 a share, in 2014. Buy. TRANSCANADA CORP. $54 (www.transcanada.com) has increased its quarterly dividend by 8.3%, to $0.52 a share from $0.48. The new annual rate of $2.08 yields 3.9%. TransCanada has raised its payout each year since 2000. Best Buy....

ENBRIDGE INC. $62 (Toronto symbol ENB; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Utilities sector; Shares outstanding: 851.6 million; Market cap: $52.8 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.4; Dividend yield: 3.0%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.enbridge.com) gets 90% of its revenue from pipelines that pump oil and natural gas from Western Canada to Eastern Canada and the U.S. The remaining 10% mainly comes from distributing gas to 2.1 million consumers in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and New York State.

Since 2008, Enbridge has spent $20 billion on 39 new pipelines and other projects. Thanks to these investments, the company’s revenue soared 164.1%, from $12.5 billion in 2009 to $32.9 billion in 2013. Its revenue probably increased to $37.7 billion in 2014.

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Every Tuesday we bring you “Best Canadian Stocks.” You get our specific recommendations on the stocks we profile, with a full explanation of how we arrived at our opinion. You’ll read about stocks making moves you should know about, from coverage in one of our three newsletters featuring Canadian stocks—The Successful Investor, Stock Pickers Digest and Canadian Wealth Advisor. ENBRIDGE INC. (Toronto symbol ENB; www.enbridge.com) gets 90% of its revenue from pipelines that pump oil and natural gas from Western Canada to Eastern Canada and the U.S. The remaining 10% mainly comes from distributing gas to 2.1 million consumers in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and New York State. Since 2008, Enbridge has spent $20 billion on 39 new pipelines and other projects. Thanks to these investments, the company’s revenue soared 164.1%, from $12.5 billion in 2009 to $32.9 billion in 2013. Its revenue probably increased to $37.7 billion in 2014....

ENBRIDGE INC. $62 (Toronto symbol ENB; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Utilities sector; Shares outstanding: 851.6 million; Market cap: $52.8 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.4; Dividend yield: 3.0%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.enbridge.com) gets 90% of its revenue from pipelines that pump oil and natural gas from Western Canada to Eastern Canada and the U.S. The remaining 10% mainly comes from distributing gas to 2.1 million consumers in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and New York State. Since 2008, Enbridge has spent $20 billion on 39 new pipelines and other projects. Thanks to these investments, the company’s revenue soared 164.1%, from $12.5 billion in 2009 to $32.9 billion in 2013. Its revenue probably increased to $37.7 billion in 2014....

The iShares S&P/TSX 60 Index ETF, $22.14, symbol XIU on Toronto, has about 21% of its assets in what are classified as “energy stocks.” However, the S&P/TSX 60 Index’s energy component includes a number of companies we would classify as utilities, such as Enbridge, TransCanada Corp. and Pembina Pipeline. The “energy” component also includes uranium miner Cameco. Removing those utility and resource stocks takes the index’s oil and gas component down to 13% or so. That’s a reasonable amount to hold as part of the oil and gas segment in a well-balanced portfolio’s Resources component.

ENBRIDGE INC. $62.78 (Toronto symbol ENB; Shares outstanding: 848.8 million; Market cap: $53.5 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Divd. yield: 3.0%; www.enbridge.com) has won a contract to build an underwater pipeline that will pump crude oil from a new platform in the Gulf of Mexico to an existing pipeline network. This deal is worth $130 million, which is small next to the $8.3 billion of revenue the company reported for the three months ended September 30, 2014. However, deals like this enhance Enbridge’s already strong reputation in the region; its pipelines already carry about 40% of the natural gas produced in the Gulf’s deeper areas. The new line should start up in 2018....

ENBRIDGE INC. $62.78 (Toronto symbol ENB; Shares outstanding: 848.8 million; Market cap: $53.5 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Divd. yield: 3.0%; www.enbridge.com) has won a contract to build an underwater pipeline that will pump crude oil from a new platform in the Gulf of Mexico to an existing pipeline network.

This deal is worth $130 million, which is small next to the $8.3 billion of revenue the company reported for the three months ended September 30, 2014.

However, deals like this enhance Enbridge’s already strong reputation in the region; its pipelines already carry about 40% of the natural gas produced in the Gulf’s deeper areas. The new line should start up in 2018.

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CAE INC., $14.64, Toronto symbol CAE, is our Stock of the Year for 2015. The stock has gained 3.8% since we made CAE our Stock of the Year for 2014. We feel it’s just getting started and has many years of growth ahead. That’s because the company is in a strong position to profit from several trends that are just beginning to take shape. For one, airlines will have to hire more pilots in the next few years as existing ones retire. As well, global air travel volumes should rise 5% annually for the next 20 years. Both of these developments should boost demand for new pilots and increase enrolment at CAE’s flight schools....

Exchange traded funds (ETFs) are set up to mirror the performance of a stock market index or sub-index. They hold a more or less fixed selection of securities that represent the holdings that go into the calculation of the index or sub-index. ETFs trade on stock exchanges, just like stocks. That’s different from mutual funds, which you can only buy at the end of the day at a price that reflects the fund’s value at the close of trading. Prices of ETFs are quoted in newspaper stock tables and online. You pay brokerage commissions to buy and sell them, but their low management fees give them a cost advantage over most mutual funds....

ENBRIDGE INC. $55.52 (Toronto symbol ENB; Shares outstanding: 848.8 million; Market cap: $47.5 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average ; Dividend yield : 3.4 % ; www.enbridge.com) has announced a major reorganization and hiked its dividend by a third. The company plans to transfer its pipelines to 19.9%-owned affiliate Enbridge Income Fund Holdings Inc. (Toronto symbol ENF). This company owns 42% of Enbridge Income Fund (Enbridge Inc. owns the remaining 58%), which holds a variety of businesses, including oil and gas pipelines and solar and wind farms. Under the plan, Enbridge will transfer pipelines that pump oil sands crude to the U.S., along with wind farms in Alberta and Quebec, to Enbridge Income Fund. In all, these assets have a book value of $17 billion. To put that in context, Enbridge’s market cap (or the value of all of its outstanding shares) is $47.5 billion....