Canadian retirees are searching for ways to add a bit of monthly income to complement their pension cheques.
One popular strategy involves owning dividend stocks and REITs that pay their distributions monthly.
Let’s take a look at RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust (TSX:REI.UN) and Inter Pipeline Ltd. (TSX:IPL) to see if they are worthy picks.
RioCan
RioCan owns and operates retail properties across Canada.
The demise of a number of big-name department stores has some investors wondering if the days of the shopping mall are numbered.
Companies operating in certain segments are definitely facing challenges from online competition, but RioCan’s customer base is very diversified, and demand remains strong for its retail space.
In fact, RioCan gets no more than 5% of its revenue from any single tenant, and committed occupancy was 96.8% at the end of Q3 2017.
Regarding growth, RioCan is in the early stages of a plan to build up to 10,000 residential units over the next decade at its top urban locations.
Management recently raised the monthly payout. At the time of writing, investors can pick up an annualized yield of 6%.
IPL
IPL owns natural gas liquids (NGL) extraction assets, conventional oil pipelines, oil sands pipelines, and a liquids storage business in Europe.
The company has raised its dividend annually right through the oil rout, and management took advantage of the downturn to add strategic assets at attractive prices.
As the market recovers, IPL could see strong returns on the investments.
In addition, the company recently announced plans to go ahead with its $3.5 billion Heartland Petrochemical Complex. Construction will commence this year and IPL hopes to have the facilities completed by the end of 2021.
The company recently increased the monthly dividend to $0.14 per share. At the time of writing, investors can buy the stock for $23 and get an annualized yield of 7.3%.
The bottom line
Both companies offer attractive monthly payments that should be safe. The recent pullback in dividend stocks might be a bit overdone, so there could be an opportunity to pick up some nice upside down the road in addition to the above-average yields.
