2022 may have been a painful year for investors in equities, but some stocks were punished more than they deserved despite operational resilience. One such glaring example is Brookfield Infrastructure Partners (BIP 1.61%), a top-notch dividend growth stock that is now trading near its 52-week low. The stock's price drop has pushed its dividend yield to two-year highs of 4.6%.
If you're looking to buy stocks for 2023, you simply can't miss this beaten-down stock. But before I tell you why, note that I'm referring to the limited partnership here and not the corporate shares that trade as Brookfield Infrastructure Corporation. Although the two are the same corporate entity, owning units of Brookfield Infrastructure Partners in tax-deferred accounts like IRAs has some tax implications.
However, that doesn't warrant the steep recent fall in shares of the partnership, and the stock looks primed to rebound and rally in 2023 as the company prepares for a record year.
This stock is inflation-resistant and recession-proof
Brookfield Infrastructure does invest in infrastructure, but what sets it apart is that most of its assets are stable cash-generating machines like utilities, midstream energy, rail and toll roads, telecom towers, and data centers.
To put some numbers to that, almost 90% of Brookfield Infrastructure's cash flows are regulated or contracted, so a recession may not hurt much. Also, nearly 70% of its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) is indexed to inflation, which means its tariffs increase with inflation and flow through its bottom line.
And, this is precisely what makes Brookfield Infrastructure such an attractive stock right now.
We're in the midst of a high inflationary environment with fears of a recession looming large. Brookfield Infrastructure, however, continues to make money. In the third quarter, for example, it generated record funds from operations (FFO) of $525 million, up 24% year over year. Of that, 10% was organic growth that came from "elevated inflation levels impacting tariffs and the commissioning of approximately $1.2 billion of capital projects" in the past 12 months.
So even if the economy slips into a recession in 2023, Brookfield Infrastructure's FFO, as well as dividends, should keep rising. The company aims to increase its dividend per unit by 5% to 9% every year, which looks like an easy goal going by its track record of the past decade.
Image source: Brookfield Infrastructure Partners.
The real catalyst for FFO and dividend growth in 2023
Of course, there's more to Brookfield's high-quality FFO growth than just contractual tariffs and inflation. Its core business strategy, in fact, is asset recycling, which means the company regularly sells mature assets to reinvest the proceeds in high-margin businesses.
Brookfield Infrastructure expects to net nearly $2.4 billion in proceeds from the sale of assets in fiscal-year 2022. As for reinvesting, it already identified growth opportunities worth $1.2 billion as of the third quarter, including the acquisition of a portfolio of 36,000 telecom towers in Europe and a home services company called HomeServe, as well as a partnership with technology giant Intel to build a semiconductor foundry in Arizona.
Over the next few months, Brookfield Infrastructure expects to add almost $4 billion of new capital projects to its backlog.
This stock could earn you double-digit returns in 2023
All of this makes one thing evident: highly visible growth for Brookfield Infrastructure for 2023, which should also mean solid returns for investors, as in the past.
So by buying Brookfield Infrastructure stock now, you'll be investing in a company that could easily grow its FFO per unit by 10% or more even amid high inflation, rising interest rates, and a slowdown, and increase its dividend by at least 5% in 2023. Also, you get to enjoy a 4.6% yield right now.
It couldn't get much better, and with the stock trading near 52-week lows, at less than 12 times its projected 2022 FFO, and just about 10 times its 2023 FFO estimate, Brookfield Infrastructure could turn out to be a big winner in 2023.
