Merger set to spur dividend

Article Excerpt

ENCANA CORP. $9.20 (Toronto symbol ECA; Shares outstanding: 963.1 million; Market cap: $8.8 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Average; Dividend yield: 0.9%; www.encana.com) recently agreed to acquire Newfield Exploration for $7.7 billion U.S. Newfield operates shale oil and natural gas wells in the Stack and Scoop fields of Oklahoma, the Bakken region of North Dakota and Utah’s Uinta basin. Encana aims to complete the merger in February 2019. The company will then launch a new plan to buy back $1.25 billion U.S. of its shares, or about 12% of the total outstanding. As well, it will increase its quarterly dividend by 25.0%. The new annual rate of $0.075 U.S. would yield 1.1%. The merger will let Encana cut $250 million U.S. from its annual costs (half from merging corporate functions, and half from applying its more-efficient drilling techniques to Newfield’s wells). To put that target in perspective, the company will probably report cash flow of $2.1 billion U.S., or $2.23 U.S. a share, for…