Rogers Plunges After Favoring Debt Decrease Over Dividend Raise
- Stock falls as much as 6.5%, most intraday since June 2013
- CFO: investors should see Rogers as more than a dividend play
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Rogers Communications Inc. fell the most in 2 1/2 years after skipping an expected dividend increase in favor of cutting down its debt.
Analysts had forecast a dividend raise of 5 percent, RBC Capital Markets analyst Drew McReynolds said in a note to clients Thursday. Instead, Canada’s biggest wireless provider kept it at 48 Canadian cents (34 cents) a share. The company said it wants to bring its ratio of adjusted net debt to operating profit down to 2.5 from 3.1. Rogers has C$18.4 billion in outstanding debt, according to data gathered by Bloomberg.