Updating Great-West Lifeco Inc. and Imeprial Oil Ltd.

Article Excerpt

GREAT-WEST LIFECO INC. $33 (www.greatwestlifeco.com) earned $687 million, or $0.69 a share, in the three months ended September 30, 2014, up 31.4% from $523 million, or $0.52 a share, a year earlier. The gain is partly because the company spent just $6 million integrating its July 2013 purchase of Irish Life, Ireland’s largest pension manager and life insurance provider, down from $60 million. Without these costs, earnings jumped 19%. Revenue rose 17.3%, to $8.45 billion from $7.2 billion. Buy. IMPERIAL OIL LTD. $54 (www.imperialoil.ca) produced an average of 307,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day in the third quarter of 2014, up 6.6% from 288,000 barrels a year earlier. That’s mainly because it continues to expand its Kearl oil sands project, which helped offset lower oil prices. Imperial’s refineries are also benefiting from the recent drop in oil prices. As a result, earnings jumped 44.7% in the latest quarter, to $1.10 a share from $0.76. Cash flow per share gained…