I own what used to be a full position and with the continued decline, was considering topping it back up...some soon then the rest later in the year. No rush to deploy the cash...it's sitting in RBF2010, earning 4.55%.
Thanks for your help...much appreciated...Steve
The company was quite adamant that BCE is going to remain a dividend stock. We will let the chairman speak here. This is a transcript of comments:
Gordon M. Nixon, Chair of the Board:
The -- a very good question and obviously our payout ratio is through our state out of objective which is 65% to 75% of free Cash Flow and what we have been trying to do is balance the appropriate capital allocation between investment in the future, investment in infrastructure and return to shareholders. First and foremost, I think it's important to acknowledge that BCE is very much a dividend stock. It has been for almost for -- certainly over the last 20 years and if you look at our history and our objectives, which are annual dividend increases, we've been able to increase our dividend annually going back, I think it's 17 years, although we did reduce the growth rate of our dividend this year. We always were within our range. Unfortunately COVID threw a real wrench into that and and coming out of COVID, we have constantly been above our 65% to 75% range. And one of the reasons for that is because we've used so much of our free cash flow to invest in fiber and infrastructure which is as I we -- both Mirko and I have said is critical to the future. We're going through this period now of of heavy CapEx which has elevated our payout ratio which is one of the reasons we reduced our growth rate. This year it was 3%. But going into the future ultimately you will see a shift in terms of reducing CapEx and more free cash flow. So that we would very much like to get back to our objective of 65% to 75% and I think we've been very transparent with the -- with the investment community in terms of the time frame that it will take us to get back there. As we move forward though we continue to recognize that as I say we are dividend stock. Our shareholders not only expect our dividends but are expecting dividend growth and that's part of the reason that we are able to attract capital and to attract investments. So we've gone through this transitional period but hopefully there is a light at the end of the tunnel. We do not see a rush to buy this, but do think slow accumulation could be done for investors willing to put in some time. We do not think sentiment will stay this bad forever, and any good news at all would likely see an amplified positive impact on the stock.