The Successful Investor Hotline – Friday, July 11, 2008

Article Excerpt

BCE INC. $39.25, Toronto symbol BCE, gained $4 last Friday after it agreed to stop paying common share dividends as part of a new deal with the consortium headed by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan that plans to buy BCE. The consortium will still pay $42.75 a share for BCE, and aims to close the transaction by December 11, 2008. However, suspending the dividend will save the company about $900 million, and make it easier for the consortium to secure the roughly $35 billion from lenders they need to complete the acquisition. The consortium has also agreed to pay BCE $1.2 billion if it backs out of the deal, up 20% from the original break-up fee of $1 billion. BCE is still a buy. MDS INC. $15.04, Toronto symbol MDS, gets all of its medical isotopes from the Chalk River reactor near Ottawa. The company sells these isotopes to medical labs, which use them to detect and treat cancer and other diseases…