The difference between September and nown September, ENB had just announced the $19 billion Dominion acquisition. The street was decidedly bearish on the deal as the media was showing videos of Midstream operators dissing the deal because the returns were not high enough. There were rumblings of a 5% ROI which didn't impress anybody. There was a lot of uncertainty as to whether the deal would be accretive and when. There were also legitimate concerns if FERC would allow a foreign company to take control of a key infrastructure asset. All of a sudden, there were about a hundred million new shares floating around with no time table as to when or even if the funds generated by those share would get put to use. The one thing for sure was that earnings would be negatively impacted by the dilution unit the cash was put to work.
Since then, Greg Ebel has repeatedly touted the deal aNs a "generational win" and the street has had time to absorb the impact of the acquistion. Now, the ROI is targeted at 8% which is acceptable for a utility (Midstreams don't do utilities, so the media was asking the wrong people back in September).
What the pros eventually figure out is that ENB's core strength in recent years is adding small tidbits to existing assets. The days of building massive new pipelines are over as trying to reason with environmental and political opposition is not worth it. So, what ENB does is invest in little $200 add-ons that don't face any opposition as the locals to each project can see the win in terms of service or convenience.
While the BIG newsmaking projects only generate a 8% return (before ENB comes in and makes improvements), the add-on investments typically have a minimum 20% return threshold. Here is an example (I hope that I have my facts straight), Enbridge gas in Ontario added 46,000 new customers last year - no fuss - no muss and nobody even notices.
So, when ENB has completed absorbing the $19 billion of "utility" assets that generate 8% returns at virtually zero risk (which I expect will become 10% returns as mgmt grinds the operations and numbers), the company will start a series of $200 million service upgrades for years and years. The upgrades will pay for themselves in about 4 years (20% compound return) and then just keep generating cash flow for at least 20 years and probably a lot longer.
When Ebel talks about a "generational win", he isn't saying that ENB smashed it on the deal. What he is really saying is that the Dominion assets give ENB an entirely new platform to work from to do what they do best.
At some point, the street will figure it out. By the time retail figures it out, ENB will be at a different level.