Canadian companies are spending the fourth quarter in confident, dividend-raising mode after a spring and summer of pandemic-related caution, cuts and cancellations.
Giants like Enbridge Inc., Dollarama Inc., Mullen Group Ltd. and AltaGas Ltd. all joined the list of hikers in just the past week-plus. But they have plenty of company: A search of dividend-related announcements in the S&P Global Market Intelligence database shows 47 companies with their primary stock listing on the TSX announced dividend increases since Oct. 1 alongside reporting third-quarter results. Of those, 29 are on large enough to be on the S&P/TSX Composite.
That’s roughly the same as the number of dividend increases for the second and third quarters combined: Just 19 companies (13 Composite) announced hikes in 2Q, and 27 (16 Composite) made dividend-boosting announcements in the quarter ended Sept. 30.
Broadly, the companies are reversing a trend of dividend cuts earlier in the year. From April 1 to Sept. 30, 73 companies – 18 of them on the Composite - announced dividend cuts, suspensions or cancellations, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.
A separate analysis performed in the S&P Global Market Intelligence database found primary-listed stocks in the S&P/TSX Composite paid about $60 per share in dividends, in the aggregate, in 2019′s fourth quarter. That number fell to about $45 in the second and third quarters of 2020.
The following is a list of TSX companies that S&P Global Market Intelligence noted as making announcements of dividend increases so far in the fourth quarter. The list doesn’t include companies that have their primary stock listing on an exchange in the U.S. or elsewhere outside Canada.
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