Two Recent Buys: Royal Bank of Canada and Alaris Royalty Corp.

While the North American markets dropped 2-3% Monday due to turmoil relating to Greece default, I was lucky enough to deploy cash and buy stakes in two fantastic companies.

I’m been looking to buy Royal Bank for my non-registered portfolio so that I can sell it in my RRSP and move the money into a US/international company. With Royal Bank's share price down 2% on Monday and the yield over 4%, I snapped up shares in Canada’s largest bank.  My first purchase of Royal Bank was in October 2007, and since that time the share price and dividend are up 43% and 54% respectively.  As I’ve indicated before, I’m a big believer in our Canadian banks given their strong lobby group that has resulted in a very friendly regulatory environment.

After re-establishing a position in Alaris Royalty Corp. late last month, I bought enough shares at a slightly lower price to consider my holding a full position. I’ve already talked about why I love this royalty company, and how I consider it the only true private equity play in Canada.

After complaining about the curse of having cash in my account, I’m happy to report that these two buys resulted in my cash holdings only representing about 3.5% of my total holdings at quarter end. Still a bit too high in my mind, but it does leave me with more ammunition should the Greece situation further depress North American markets in coming weeks.