Go beyond the big banks with these three

Article Excerpt

High-quality stocks like Great-West and IGM are a great way to diversify your Finance sector holdings beyond Canada’s big five banks. If you can accept the added risk, we also like Home Capital Group (see box). GREAT-WEST LIFECO INC. $31 (Toronto symbol GWO; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 951.4 million; Market cap: $29.5 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.0; Dividend Yield: 4.0%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.greatwestlifeco.com) is Canada’s second-largest insurance company after Manulife, with $581.9 billion of assets under administration. It also sells mutual funds and retirement planning and wealth management services. Power Financial (Toronto symbol PFC) owns 68.2% of Great-West. The company expects to complete its $1.75- billion purchase of Irish Life Group in the next few weeks. This business is Ireland’s largest pension manager and life insurance provider. Meanwhile, Great-West continues to benefit from rising equity markets, which have raised the value of the assets it manages. Mutual fund sales at U.S. subsidiary Putnam Investments are also…