Fortis Inc. (NYSE:FTS) Increases Dividend to $0.62 Per Share

by · The Cerbat Gem

Fortis Inc. (NYSE:FTS – Get Free Report) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, September 26th, Zacks reports. Shareholders of record on Monday, November 18th will be given a dividend of 0.615 per share by the utilities provider on Sunday, December 1st. This represents a $2.46 annualized dividend and a yield of 5.40%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, November 18th. This is a boost from Fortis’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.43.

Fortis has raised its dividend by an average of 5.7% per year over the last three years. Fortis has a payout ratio of 71.7% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect Fortis to earn $2.42 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.75 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 72.3%.

Fortis Stock Up 0.4 %

Shares of FTS opened at $45.56 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.26, a quick ratio of 0.58 and a current ratio of 0.69. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $43.49 and a 200-day simple moving average of $40.86. Fortis has a 52 week low of $36.30 and a 52 week high of $45.83. The firm has a market capitalization of $22.56 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.64, a P/E/G ratio of 3.99 and a beta of 0.47.

Fortis (NYSE:FTS – Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 31st. The utilities provider reported $0.49 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.47 by $0.02. Fortis had a return on equity of 7.04% and a net margin of 13.90%. The firm had revenue of $1.95 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.96 billion. On average, equities research analysts expect that Fortis will post 2.34 earnings per share for the current year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages recently commented on FTS. Bank of America assumed coverage on Fortis in a research report on Friday, September 20th. They issued an “underperform” rating for the company. UBS Group raised shares of Fortis to a “strong sell” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 10th. Finally, StockNews.com raised shares of Fortis from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Sunday, August 4th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and two have given a hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Reduce” and an average price target of $61.00.

Read Our Latest Stock Report on Fortis

About Fortis

(Get Free Report)

Fortis Inc operates as an electric and gas utility company in Canada, the United States, and the Caribbean countries. It generates, transmits, and distributes electricity to approximately 447,000 retail customers in southeastern Arizona; and 103,000 retail customers in Arizona's Mohave and Santa Cruz counties with an aggregate capacity of 3,408 megawatts (MW), including 68 MW of solar capacity and 250 MV of wind capacity.

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