The Globe and Mail reports in its Saturday edition that last Wednesday Enbridge hit a 2-1/2 year low, driving the dividend yield to a high of 7.9 per cent, after the company announced a deal to acquire three U.S. natural-gas utilities from Dominion Energy. The Globe's David Berman writes that to help finance the deal, Enbridge issued $4.6-billion of new shares priced at $44.70 each -- marking a 7.2-per-cent discount to the previous day's closing price. The sale price of the new shares virtually assured a dismal reception by investors and added to the stock's disappointing performance in recent years. Consider that over the past five years, Enbridge's share price has risen just 1.6 per cent, as of Thursday. That compares -- poorly -- with a 25.4-per-cent gain for the S&P/TSX Composite over the same period. Factor in dividends and Enbridge's performance improves. However, the stock's total return of 41.9 per cent still lags the index by nearly five percentage points over five years. Enbridge's regular cash distributions fail to make up for its plodding share price. The result is that Enbridge's long-term returns continue to lag the diversified S&P/TSX Composite Index by a substantial margin.