1 Canadian Dividend Stock Up 70% That’s Still the Cream of the TSX Crop

A stock can still be a great investment even after a 70% surge. The business simply has to improve enough to justify the move in the share price. And that’s the key part investors sometimes miss: A big run-up is not always hype. Sometimes it’s the market finally catching up to stronger earnings, better margins, and a clearer strategy. When that happens, a stock can still be worth buying if the long-term story looks stronger than the recent chart looks scary.

If you’re a long-term investor looking for a Canadian consumer staples stock with improving fundamentals, Saputo (TSX:SAP) is worth a close look.

Saputo: A Global Dairy Business Getting Sharper

Saputo is one of Canada’s best-known food companies, but it is also a genuinely global dairy business. It sells cheese, milk, cream, butter, and a long list of dairy products across Canada, the United States, Australia, Argentina, and the United Kingdom. That gives the company scale, brand reach, and a business built around products people keep buying in good times and bad.

Over the last year, the story has been less about flashy expansion and more about getting sharper. Saputo has been leaning into efficiency initiatives, margin improvement, and portfolio cleanup. Just last month, it agreed to sell an 80% interest in its Argentina operations — a deal that values the total Argentina business at about $855 million, with Saputo expected to receive about $543 million in cash proceeds upon close. That is the kind of decision smart managers make when they want a company to get better, not just bigger.

The operating progress has been showing up in results. Saputo’s fiscal third-quarter 2026 release noted operational improvements from capital investments, better efficiency, and commercial execution. This isn’t just a dairy company hoping for better milk prices, but a company actively trying to improve how it runs. So let’s dig in deeper.

The earnings case

The earnings were strong. In the third quarter of fiscal 2026, Saputo reported revenue of $4.89 billion, down 2% year over year, but adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) rose 18% to $492 million. Net earnings jumped 41% to $220 million, and adjusted EBITDA margin expanded to 10.1% from 8.4% a year earlier. For the first nine months of fiscal 2026, adjusted EBITDA totalled $1.53 billion, up 9.8% from the prior year. Those are the kinds of numbers that help explain why the dividend stock has moved so much.

The quality of that improvement matters too. Revenue dipped, but profitability climbed sharply. That usually tells you management is getting more disciplined on costs, mix, and operations. In a consumer staples business, that can be a very attractive setup because investors are not relying only on top-line growth to make the stock work.

Saputo’s dividend

Saputo pays a quarterly dividend of $0.20 per share, annualizing to $0.80, for a yield of about 1.8% at current prices. That’s a modest yield, but I’d argue that the real return case here rests on earnings improvement and capital appreciation rather than income. Investors buying Saputo for a large yield will be disappointed; investors buying it for the long-term compounding story are in the right frame of mind.

Valuation

Valuation is the honest trade-off here. After a 70% run, Saputo trades at a trailing P/E of 28 and a forward P/E of 20. That is not obviously cheap for a commodity food business where raw milk makes up roughly 85% of the cost of goods sold. For the valuation to hold or expand, Saputo needs to keep delivering on efficiency and margins. Any miss, a recall, or weaker regional conditions can hurt sentiment quickly. (Saputo recently recalled select U.S. cottage cheese products, which is worth keeping in mind.) Still, for a company improving operations this visibly, the stock can still fit a buy-and-hold case if you believe the margin expansion story has more runway.

Bottom line

If you want a Canadian consumer staples stock that has some momentum behind it but still looks built to last, Saputo makes a reasonable case. It is not the cheapest stock on the TSX, and it is not primarily an income stock — the 1.8% yield is real but modest. It has a global dairy platform, a more focused strategy after the Argentina divestiture, and earnings momentum that looks real rather than imagined.

For a forever-hold investor with patience for a commodity-adjacent business, it still looks like one of the steadier names on the TSX.

The post 1 Canadian Dividend Stock Up 70% That’s Still the Cream of the TSX Crop appeared first on The Motley Fool Canada.

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More reading

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Fool contributor Amy Legate-Wolfe has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.