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Gold/Mining/Energy : Canadian REITS, Trusts & Dividend Stocks -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: David Alon who wrote (2345)	12/21/2001 2:46:01 PM
From: David Alon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 11633

TORONTO (GlobeinvestorGOLD) -- Here’s an investment idea that probably won’t make you rich but at least locks in a nice, and fairly reliable, dividend. Toronto money manager Sceptre Investment Counsel just declared its regular 20-cent quarterly dividend and predicted that it probably can maintain the rate “for the foreseeable future.” Why is that interesting? Well, at around $14.50 (down from more $43 in 1997) Sceptre shares now offer a dividend yield of 5.5 per cent, one of the richest in the Toronto Stock Exchange 300 index. Even dividend stalwarts such as TransAlta or TransCanada PipeLines yield less than 5 per cent. Sceptre’s stock has tanked because the company went through a performance slump in 1998 and 1999 that saw clients flee. Its $3.8-billion Sceptre Canadian Equity Pooled Fund earned a lacklustre 13.7 per cent in the red-hot market of 1999, for instance, leaving it in the bottom quartile of its group. Sceptre’s assets under management have slumped from more than $19-billion at the end of 1998 to $12.5-billion as of June 30, 2001. The dividend yield may be attractive, but does Sceptre offer any growth? Yes, if the company can attract cash to a new family of broker-sold mutual funds that will be launched this coming March in partnership with U.S fund giant Putnam. As expected, most of the money that went into mutual funds last month ended up in money market funds yet again. But sales of true long-term funds were also up – recovering from their scary slump of the summer and fall. Money market funds took in $2.6-billion in November, bringing their year-to-date sales to a staggering $26.4-billion, while Canadian equity funds attracted just $70-million last month and foreign equity funds brought in only $113-million. But when you look at over-all sales of true “long-term” mutual funds (that is, excluding money market funds), the industry has definitely bounced back as stock markets recovered from their lows of late September. Long-term funds posted sales of $913-million in November. That was down 30 per cent from the same month in 2000. But it was up from $684-million in October and an awful lot prettier than the long-term-fund redemptions of more than $400-million that the fund industry recorded in September. Vancouver-based cold storage giant Versacold plans to turn itself into an income fund - partly in an attempt to rescue its languishing stock price. The company’s shares jumped $1.85, or 40 per cent, to $6.25 on the news – but they’re still down from more than $8 in 2000. In contrast, units in rival Atlas Cold Storage Trust (FZR.UN) have climbed more than 43 per cent this year, boosted in part by strong demand for an investment that pays regular distributions. Versacold was plagued in 1999 and 2000 by disappointing results and management turmoil. Profit in 1999 slumped to $1.5-million, or 16 cents a share, from $4-million, or 42 cents, a year earlier. In May of this year, the company was reported to be facing a wrongful dismissal suit from former chief executive Lionel Dodd who left Versacold in January, 2000. Versacold shareholders can swap their 9.7 million shares on a one-for-one basis for units in the new Versacold Income Fund. The company also plans to sell $80-million worth of new trust units in a public issue. Chairman Brent Sugden said it’s too early to predict what the annual yield of the units is likely to be. Andrew Bell was an investment reporter and editor with The Globe and Mail for 12 years prior to joining Report on Business Television in 2001.