Updating Canadian Utilities Ltd., ATCO Ltd. and Royal Bank of Canada

Article Excerpt

CANADIAN UTILITIES LTD. $40 (www.canadianutilities.com) distributes electricity and natural gas in Alberta and Australia. The company earned $0.79 a share in the first quarter of 2017, up 21.5% from $0.65 a year earlier. If you disregard gains on the sale of assets and other unusual items, earnings rose 9.1%. Thanks to a new power line project in Alberta, revenue gained 17.2%, to $997 million from $851 million. Buy. ATCO LTD. $50 (www.atco.com) gets most of its earnings from its 52.8% stake in Canadian Utilities (see above). It also owns 75.5% of ATCO Structures & Logistics, which makes temporary buildings for construction, mining and energy-exploration firms. If you factor out unusual items, ATCO’s first quarter earnings fell 3.3%. That’s due to fewer new contracts for its Structures business. However, thanks to higher revenue at Canadian Utilities, ATCO’s overall revenue rose 5.4%, to $1.12 billion from $1.06 billion. Buy. ROYAL BANK OF CANADA $93 (www.rbc.com) plans to repurchase up to 30.0 million of its…