Telus cuts spending

Article Excerpt

TELUS, $22.46, is a buy. The company (Toronto symbol T; Shares outstanding: 1.5 billion; Market cap: $33.5 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 6.7%; www.telus.com) increased your quarterly dividend by 3.5% with the July 2024 payment. The shares now yield 6.7%. Moreover, the company plans to raise the annual dividend rate by between 7% and 10% from 2023 through the end of 2025. Telus has now substantially completed a multi-year plan to upgrade its wireless networks to handle 5G signal. It has also upgraded most of its copper-line networks to fibreoptic cable. As a result, the company’s overall capital spending in 2024 will decline about 8% to $2.6 billion. That should help lift this year’s free cash flow (regular cash flow less maintenance capital spending) by about 24% to $2.2 billion. Telus Corp. is a buy. buy…