Q: Market seemed to like the great Q2 results for Stella Jones. The press release mentioned the 2023-2025 financial objects from the inaugural Investor Day in May and I noticed the plan included a >$500M cumulative return to shareholders. The current $0.92 dividend payout is roughly $54M/yr which is well short of the goal objective. Any insight into dividend raises or special dividends.
5i Research Answer:
We have comments posted on the quarter in the archives. There is room for an increased or special dividend but we would also note that SJ has bought back $60M in shares this year as well. If we combine the dividend and buyback rate over three years there is still a cushion. We would expect 'more' as time goes on but management does tend to be quite conservative so may move slower on the dividend or special dividends.