5 Interesting Canadian Small-Caps With Fat Yields

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The TSX is back to flirting with all-time highs and your author is stuck lusting for the good ol’ days of last month when there were actually some bargains out there.

I have two choices. I can either sit here and complain about it (like my friend, Whiny McWhinerson), or I can press on. There’s gotta be a few decent companies out there, right?

It turns out they do exist. You just need to poke around a little bit.

Let’s do it.

You know a company likes dividends when it puts the word smack dab in the middle of its name. That’s commitment, kids.

Decisive Dividend Corp (TSXV:DE) has done exactly that, but it’s not only a dividend play. It’s also a growth by acquisition machine.

Decisive is the owner of various small manufacturers. Assets include companies that make wood stoves, agricultural sprayers, fuel tanks, and retail merchandising tools. It’s not sexy stuff, but assets can be acquired cheaply. The company looks to pay up to 5.5x EBITDA for deals, bargains it can get because Decisive’s targets are just too small to entice other consolidators.

The company stumbled a bit in 2024-25 as the wood stove business had a rough year. Tariffs didn’t help either. But business has picked up and the company has grown free cash flow from $0.56 per share in 2024 to $0.68 per share in 2025. At this point it looks like Decisive can generate a hair over $0.80 per share in FCF in 2026, giving the stock a multiple of just over 11x. That’s cheap, especially considering the growth potential.

The company has $44M in liquidity to do its next deal. That’s plenty; most deals are under $25M.

Decisive pays a $0.045 per share monthly dividend, which is about a 6% yield. It has grown the dividend for most of the last decade before pausing dividend growth in 2024. If results are good and it can make another deal or two, I’d expect dividend growth to resume shortly.

Nelly, come on. A sugar company?

Rogers Sugar (TSX:RSI) isn’t just any sugar company. It’s part of a true duopoly. Rogers and Redpath control the Canadian sweetener market. Rogers is also a leader in maple syrup, a business that quietly gets more profitable the longer the company owns it.

On the surface sugar seems like a mature business without much growth. But that isn’t quite true. Rogers has grown the top line by 9% annually since 2016, and free cash flow went from $46M in 2023 to $104M in 2025. That puts the stock at about 8x free cash flow, which is really cheap for a company that grew FCF by more than 100% in the last two years.

More growth is coming, too. The company is in the middle of a $300M expansion of its Montreal refinery, which will increase production by about 20%. It’ll be completed in 2027, with the impact really being felt in fiscal 2028.

We could even see Rogers hike its dividend once Montreal is completed. That would be the company’s first dividend increase in 15+ years. As it stands today, the yield is still a respectable 5.5%.

For much more on Rogers Sugar, check out this video I did for the Dividend Deep Dives YouTube show. While you’re there, subscribe Dargbloomit!

I know I just talked about Canadian NET REIT (TSXV:NET.un) last week, but this one is such a stud that I just can’t help myself. I’m officially in love.

Canadian NET owns triple-net real estate in Ontario, Quebec, and Atlantic Canada. Tenants are responsible for maintenance, taxes, and insurance costs, leaving CNET nothing to do but cash the rent cheques and negotiate higher leases when the term expires. Very little hands-on management frees the company up to pursue growth, while not having to worry about hiring anyone for operations. CNET is incredibly lean; as far as I can tell it only has three employees.

Like Decisive, Canadian NET operates in an attractive part of the market. The buildings it buys are a little too big for individual investors and a little too small for most other REITs. It’s also small enough — it owns about 100 properties today — that even two or three new properties can really move the bottom line.

CNET has proven it can do just that. It has grown funds from operations (FFO) per unit by 13% annually since 2011. Growth has slowed a little bit over the last couple of years, but 2026 is looking good. I expect FFO to grow by 7-10% this year.

Canadian NET pays a $0.348 per share annual distribution, payable as $0.029 each month. That’s about a 5.4% yield with a payout ratio of just over 50%. That’s quite a low payout ratio for a REIT, which frees cash to reinvest back into the business.

Shares are still cheap, too. Even after the stock has moved up more than 20% in the last year and is currently flirting with a 52-week high, it’s still only trading at 10x trailing FFO — and closer to 9x forward FFO. Shares also traded above $8 each in 2021 and 2022, versus $6.60 today.

(At a $3.5B market cap, Maple Leaf may be considered more of a mid-cap. Please forgive me.)

Maple Leaf Foods (TSX:MFI) is Canada’s largest supplier of processed meat products. It operates under the Maple Leaf, Schneiders, Greenfield, Lunch Mate, and Mitchell’s Gourmet brands, among others.

The company recently spun off its pork processing company — Canada Packers (TSX:CPKR) — to focus solely on its consumer division. It maintained the advantage of getting preferential treatment from Canada Packers while getting the liability off its balance sheet. Additionally, Canada Packers has inconsistent results caused by fluctuations in the price of hogs, which really impacted Maple Leaf’s earnings.

There are a few interesting tailwinds here. Meat is delicious, obviously. That one is important. Folks are also eating more meat and fewer carbs, which helps overall meat consumption. There’s also potential to export finished products around the world. This is happening already, of course, but with only about 10% of revenue coming from outside of Canada, this opportunity is pretty important.

Maple Leaf is also committed to maximizing returns on its invested capital, increasing margins, and deliver growing free cash flow.

Maple Leaf trades for about 15x free cash flow, which is a reasonable valuation. Especially if some of this growth materializes. The dividend yield is 2.9%, which might not be “fat” enough for some of you, but the dividend is growing. The company’s target seems to be around a 10% increase each year, so that 2.9% yield today turns into one closer to 3.2% in January, and then 3.5% in 2028.

Before we get to the last one, a quick intermission. This week on the Pod, we had Anthony The Newcomer Investor join us. We chatted about how he invests, why he prefers growth stocks over dividend stocks (don’t worry, he still owns a bunch of dividend payers), and some thoughts on a few of his favourites — including Thomson Reuters (TSX:TRI) and Brookfield (TSX:BN).

Listen on Spotify, YouTube, or wherever else you get your pods.

Corby Spirit and Wine (TSX:CSW.A)(TSX:CSW.B) is one of the country’s biggest manufacturers and distributors of spirits, wins, and ready-to-drink (RTD) cocktails. Its main brands include things like J.P. Wisers, Polar Ice, Cottage Springs, Nude, Royal Reserve, and Pike Creek.

The company also distributes Pernod Ricard’s brands in Canada, which includes names like Absolut, Jameson, and Malibu, among about a hundred others. Pernod Ricard is also the majority owner of Corby via the class A shares. There are also class B shares that come with zero voting rights but also have a little higher dividend yield. Class A shares have more liquidity, although neither one has a whole lot of liquidity.

Corby got a nice little boost in 2025 as various provincial liquor boards pulled American spirits off their shelves. I’m told these products are back in Alberta and Saskatchewan, but the ban has remained in every other province.

This has helped the business nicely. In its most recent quarterly earnings Corby told investors revenue was up by 9% and in the first two quarters of fiscal 2026 it increased by 12%. Earnings went up by about 8%, and dividends were increased by 4% to $0.24 each quarter. That translates into a 6.8% yield on the B shares.

Now we’re back to the fat dividends, baby!

Corby is decently valued at about 14x earnings, and the company has been making acquisitions in the RTD space in recent years to help grow the business. I believe those continue. There’s also the possibility that Pernod Ricard simply buys the company one day.

Please, before you go, don’t forget to participate in the short survey and vote on the type of content you want to see from CDI.

Merci!

I’d also love to hear your general comments/concerns/compliments (especially that last one). Please reply to this email with any feedback you think would improve Canadian Dividend Investing. Thanks guys, appreciate it!

Nelson owns shares in four of the five companies mentioned. He does not own shares in Maple Leaf.