The Globe and Mail reports in its Saturday edition that Power Corp. of Canada is one of the best dividend-paying stocks on the Toronto Stock Exchange. The Globe's Norman Rothery, writing in a summary of top Canadian dividend payers, says that Power Corp. is a large financial conglomerate based in Montreal. It owns a 68-per-cent share of Great-West Lifeco and 62 per cent of IGM Financial, which are also strong dividend players. Power Corp. trades near 0.8 times its adjusted net asset value, which includes the quarter-end market value of its publicly traded subsidiaries. The company boosted its dividend per share by 6.1 per cent over the past year and sports a 5.5-per-cent dividend yield. Dividend stocks are beloved by risk-averse investors. It is easy to see why because, as a group, they have provided outsized returns and avoided the worst of some of the biggest market crashes since the turn of the century. A simple dividend portfolio composed of the largest 200 stocks on the TSX would have gained an average of 11 per cent annually since the end of 1999 to the end of January, 2024, when rebalanced monthly. In comparison, the Canadian market's main benchmark gained an average of 6.6 per cent annually over the same period.