Lowe's (LOW) was founded in 1946 and is the world’s second largest home improvement retailer. The company operates over 2,100 home improvement and hardware stores (almost all in the U.S.) and helps homeowners, renters, and other customers complete a wide array of projects. The company’s stores are famous for being a one-stop shop for both [...]

With roots tracing back to the 1860s, Royal Bank of Canada (RY), or RBC, is one of the oldest and largest banks in the world. The firm is well-diversified across businesses, geographies, and client segments, serving 16 million customers across Canada, the U.S., and more than 30 other countries. RBC operates through five business segments:  Personal [...]

Shares of Occidental Petroleum (OXY) are down more than 30% since early April 2019 when Oxy emerged as the high bidder for Anadarko. As a result, Oxy's dividend yield topped 7% last month, reaching an all-time high. Although Oxy's dividend continues to look sustainable based on the price of oil today, investors clearly remain concerned [...]

Target (TGT) opened its first discount store in 1962 and is now one of America's largest retailers with annual sales of $70 billion and more than 1,800 stores across the U.S. Target’s stores focus on convenient one-stop shopping and competitive discount prices, offering a broad range of products including beauty & household essentials (24% of [...]

Founded in 1945, Walmart (WMT) is the world’s largest retailer with more than $500 billion in annual revenue and over 11,000 stores. About half of Walmart’s stores are located in international markets, where the company has had a presence since 1991. However, the majority of Walmart’s sales and profits are derived from the company’s U.S. [...]

Preferred Apartment Communities (APTS) was founded in 2011. The REIT focuses on multifamily buildings (e.g. apartments), student housing properties, office buildings, and grocery-anchored retail centers. It also originates real estate loans to developers, receiving interest payments and the option to purchase finished projects.

Founded in 1883, Kroger (KR) is America's second largest grocer behind only Walmart with over $120 billion in annual sales. The company operates over 2,700 supermarkets, many with pharmacies and fuel centers on premise. Kroger's stores are in 35 states and serve more than 11 million shoppers each day. In addition to traditional grocery shopping, [...]

Costco (COST) was founded in 1976 and pioneered the membership warehouse business model. The company is one of the world’s largest sellers of groceries, alcohol, diamonds, electronics, prescription drugs, tires, gasoline, and even travel services. Costco operates over 775 store locations, mostly in North America.

On September 5, Meredith (MDP) issued weak guidance for the year ahead. The company's leverage profile and payout ratio will now remain elevated for longer than we expected, and execution risk has also increased. As a result, we downgraded Meredith's Dividend Safety Score from Safe to Borderline Safe. Meredith's dividend still seems unlikely to be cut for now and the [...]

Meredith (MDP) is one of the nation's oldest media and publishing companies, having been founded in 1902 as an agricultural publisher. At its core, Meredith provides consumers with content by leveraging print, digital, mobile, video, and broadcast TV media platforms. Nationally, the firm reaches over 180 million American consumers. Advertising accounts for a little over [...]

Earlier this year, we published a note reviewing Macy's dividend safety profile and struggles turning around its brick-and-mortar retail business. In the note, we said that Macy's Borderline Safe Dividend Safety Score was predicated in part on the company's turnaround efforts not stalling more than they already have. Unfortunately, Macy's turnaround efforts have appeared to do just that. Despite [...]

In December 2015, Dow (DOW) and DuPont (DD) announced plans to merge, then break up into three independent companies. The idea was to create larger, more focused businesses by combining the areas of overlap in their complementary portfolios. Here's a look at each company's 2015 revenue mix. As you can see, Dow and DuPont each had large [...]

Philip Morris International (PM) surprised investors last week when the firm confirmed it was in discussions with Altria (MO) about a potential all-stock, merger of equals. After all, these two tobacco giants had separated just over a decade ago when Altria spun off Philip Morris International in 2008. The idea of a potential reunion has not been received well [...]

Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD) was founded in 1855 and is one of North America's largest banks. The firm's revenue is fairly balanced between net interest income, or lending businesses (57% of sales), and non-interest income operations (43% of revenue is from non-lending businesses such as insurance policies, card services, service charges, asset management, credit fees, brokerage [...]

Cracker Barrel Old Country Store (CBRL) has been in business since 1969 and operates a chain of more than 650 company-owned restaurants located throughout the U.S. Cracker Barrel's country-themed, full-service restaurants offer diners a variety of breakfast (24% of sales), lunch (39%), and dinner (37%) foods with meals costing about $10 on average.  Each restaurant [...]