TransAlta Adds Value

Article Excerpt

TRANSALTA CORP. $35.44 (Toronto symbol TA; SI Rating: Average) operates 50 power plants, in North America and Australia. TransAlta continues to take steps to increase shareholder value. That’s partly in response to pressure from activist U.S. shareholder Luminus Management, which owns roughly 8.4% of TransAlta’s shares. The company recently sold its Mexican assets for $304 million, and will use most of the cash to buy back stock. It also recently increased its dividend for the first time since 1999. The current rate of $1.08 a share, up 8% from $1.00, yields 3.1%. TransAlta doesn’t plan to build any new coal-fired generation plants for at least a decade. Instead, it’s increasing capital spending to upgrade and improve the productivity of its existing facilities. It may also sell some of its less-profitable plants in Ontario and Australia. Like TransCanada Corp., TransAlta is also adding to its unregulated businesses. For example, TransAlta plans to expand capacity at its Summerview wind farm in southern Alberta by 94%. The additional…