lots of great newsPayout ratio, as defined as dividends/AFFO is down below 50% for the first 9 months of the year, and much improved in Q3 from 104% in 2012 down to 77% this year.
More importantly, all of the "related party transactions", where senior management of AQN has also held interests in AQN assets, and had business relationships with AQN, have been terminated.
It did cost AQN a fair bit of cash to end these relationships, but investors have always hated these incestuous types of management/company entanglements. Large investors will avoid stocks that do not clean up these issues, so this is great news for AQN shareholders. We now have a clean slate and can concentrate on more important issues going forward.
All in all, an excellent report, and I can see AQN's share price once again moving to higher levels.
And it appears that a dividend raise in 2014 is very, very likely.