What Happened to the Income Trusts?

This article was published in the September 2011 edition of the Canadian MoneySaver, and is posted here with permission. For more information visit www.canadianmoneysaver.ca January 1st, 2011, was the deadline for Canadian income trusts (other than REITs – Real Estate Investment Trusts) to convert to corporations. I examine the basic changes of income trusts into corporations, and what’s happened to these high-yield dividend payers. Now that almost all income trusts have converted to corporations, which ones are still worth holding? The Cash Cow In Canada, income trusts were created as an alternative to the corporate structure.  The first income trust …

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High Yield Canadian Stocks: Part 1

Who says you can’t have your cake and eat it to? The adage goes that higher yield = higher risk. To a degree that is quite true. Invest in a company with high debt, a 140% Dividend Payout Ratio, 13% yield and you are looking for trouble. But you can invest in Canadian companies (some well known) with yields of 5% to 10% that have solid balance sheets. Take BCE for example, which has a 5.60% yield and is one of Canada’s leading telecoms and wireless providers. Canada has many high yield dividend stocks and trusts, many are obviously risky. …

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