Kraft Heinz hosted its annual investor day on September 15 and announced several actions that improve the firm's dividend safety outlook. Therefore, we are upgrading Kraft Heinz's Dividend Safety Score from Unsafe to Borderline Safe. The packaged food maker previously cut its dividend in February 2019, but its smaller payout continued looking speculative due to the firm's debt-saddled balance sheet and declining sales. In February 2020, Standard & Poor's even downgraded Kraft Heinz's credit rating to junk (BB+), citing the company's "unwillingness to cut its high payout dividend at a time that leverage is elevated because of underperformance." However, a lot has changed in the last six months to put Kraft Heinz's payout on somewhat stronger ground.

Con Edison faces intense political pressure following Tropical Storm Isaias, which hit the East Coast on August 4. Isaias caused the second largest number of power outages in Con Edison's history; only Superstorm Sandy in 2012 caused more outages. Over 10% of Con Edison's customers lost power. Within that group, 25% of customers were still without power after three days, and 10% had no power after five days. Not only were New Yorkers upset by the lengthy outage, but many of them were confused by information displayed on the utility's outage map and received erroneous restoration messages. Frustrated by the widespread power outages, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo threatened the state's utilities at a recent press briefing: “Can a private company even [...]

Best Buy's performance during the pandemic has exceeded our expectations, prompting us to upgrade the company's Dividend Safety Score from Borderline Safe to Safe. Best Buy reported earnings results on August 25, recording comparable sales growth of 5.8% despite its stores being open by appointment only for about half of the quarter. With all of its stores now fully reopened, sales increased 20% through the first three weeks of August. Best Buy's product mix and focus on digital (19% of sales last year) have driven its resilience during an otherwise very difficult time for most brick-and-mortar retailers.

On August 24, Portland General Electric (PGE) disclosed that its energy trading activities in wholesale electricity markets will incur third quarter losses of up to $155 million. For context, the regulated utility over the last year generated total net income of about $240 million. Shares closed 8% lower on the news. As a result of this surprise loss, management lowered full-year 2020 EPS guidance by about 40% at the midpoint. Earnings are no longer expected to cover the dividend in the year ahead.