... for the reitmans family. And they are the ones who control the business. It has been explained clearly on another board
link "
I don't think that the Reitmans family cares about the stock price nor the yield that much. They have been holding this company for almost 100 years and have a long-term owner view. They hold their stock and have no choice to do it if they want to keep control of the company. As of today, they control just above 50% of the voting rights. If they can't sell, stock price does not matter to them. What matters are the dividend payments though. They used to get very regular payments but didn't receive any cash flow from the company since 2019. I agree that they have a tendency to be cautious but excess cash available was already over $1.00/share at end of last quarter, with higher inventory than usual. Q4 would have probably released even more cash. In that case, they could easily pay a $0.50 dividend. Because they have so much cash, there is also no incentive to consider a sale/lease-back of the RE in the short term. It would inject more cash in the business (not needed) and create additional opex (leases) that could put stress on the business while they can just sit on this very valuable piece of land and benefit from the price increase in the neighboorhood due to the development of the REM, while saving the rent. Uplift on the TSX will help attracting an institutional base and will help the stock price. But again, I don't think that the family cares about the stock price that much. In that case, uplisting will just provide them with bragging rights. On the other hand, staying on the TSXV keeps some instits and their questions away. So, at the end of the day, I am betting on the family deciding to pay themselves (and us) a dividend between 0.35 and 0.55. Anything above or else, would be a very nice surprise." I share the same opinion. Basically, if the reitmans family does not want to lose control of the company by going under the 50% voting right threshold, they can't afford to sell shares. So if they can't sell shares, they shouldn't care about the stock price on the market. So anything that will only support the shares price without putting money in their pocket is useless to them. So we can discard buybacks, and probably an uplisting. Their best option is to keep running the company, increase cash-flow and pay dividends. And this is what they were doing before. Only buyback implemented historically was to buy out Fairfax. No reason to do another one from their point of view.
A real estate sales/leaseback is useless today (they have plenty of cash) and will just increase the operating risk. A PE firm will do that but not a family-run business. So I expect the Reitmans family will do what is best for them and the long-term health of the business they control: paying dividends.
We will see if they declare one tonight. If not, they will be plenty of questions at the next shareholders' meeting.