I added to my existing position in Canadian financial services firm SunLife Financial (SLF) today at $29.00/share. My rationale for the acquisition was simply that the stock looked like pretty good value in a recent market where several stocks look rich. Let's look at the numbers:
SunLife just reported first quarter earnings today after the closing bell of $0.72/share. This eclipsed the street's expectations by 11%. Earnings expectations for the company for 2010 were $2.89 per share before the release today. Assuming SunLife earns $2.89 this year the stock was trading at 10x 2010 estimated earnings when I made the purchase. I feel that this is a very reasonable valuation given their potential for earnings growth.
Another reason why this valuation was attractive was that at $29 per share SunLife was yielding 5% in dividends. Assuming that the company does not cut their dividend, which I don't believe that they will, this is a guaranteed 5% return. Combining this with a valuation of 10x earnings this seemed like a good point to add to my SunLife holding.
SunLife makes up about 7% of my non-registered portfolio.
2 comments:
The only risk is the payout ratio which seem to be > 1. I agree that this stock looks attractive. I think all the banks are a bit overvalued right now. I favour these insurance guys at the moment. Even Manulife.
Hopefully the pay out ratio will be under 50% again by December. I have to agree on the Canadian banks. Manulife and Sunlife will probably return more than the banks will over the next 3 years.
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