Cenovus rewards its investors

Article Excerpt

CENOVUS ENERGY INC., $11, is a buy. The company (Toronto symbol CVE; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Resources sector; Shares outstanding: 1.2 billion; Market cap: $13.2 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.6; Dividend yield: 2.3%; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk; www.cenovus.com) continues to do a good job paying down the loans it needed to buy full control of its two main Alberta oil sands properties—Christina Lake and Foster Creek. In 2017, Cenovus paid $17.7 billion in cash and stock for the 50% stake of its former joint-venture partner in those operations, ConocoPhillips (New York symbol COP). To help pay down its debt, the company has sold several of its less-important properties and aggressively cut its operating costs. Those moves have let Cenovus slash its long-term debt from $9.5 billion at the end of 2017 to $6.5 billion as of June 30, 2019. Even so, that’s still a high 49% of its depressed market cap. However, the company now expects to spend between $1.1 billion and $1.2 billion in 2019 on exploration and…