ALLETE, Inc. (ALE) to Issue Quarterly Dividend of $0.71 on December 1st

ALLETE, Inc. (NYSE:ALE) announced a quarterly dividend on Friday, October 25th,RTT News reports. Investors of record on Friday, November 15th will be paid a dividend of 0.705 per share by the utilities provider on Sunday, December 1st. This represents a $2.82 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.33%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, November 15th. This is an increase from ALLETE’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.70.

ALLETE has increased its dividend payment by an average of 3.1% per year over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 14 consecutive years. ALLETE has a payout ratio of 70.9% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings.

ALLETE Stock Performance

Shares of ALE stock opened at $65.09 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.51, a current ratio of 1.45 and a quick ratio of 0.95. ALLETE has a fifty-two week low of $53.14 and a fifty-two week high of $65.86. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $64.18 and its two-hundred day moving average is $63.51. The firm has a market cap of $3.76 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.86 and a beta of 0.80.

ALLETE (NYSE:ALE) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, October 30th. The utilities provider reported $0.78 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.99 by ($0.21). ALLETE had a return on equity of 5.99% and a net margin of 11.49%. The firm had revenue of $407.20 million during the quarter. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $1.49 earnings per share. ALLETE’s revenue was up 7.5% on a year-over-year basis.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several brokerages have weighed in on ALE. Sidoti raised ALLETE from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday, September 30th. StockNews.com assumed coverage on ALLETE in a report on Thursday, November 7th. They set a “hold” rating on the stock. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, ALLETE currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $62.00.

ALLETE Company Profile

ALLETE, Inc operates as an energy company. The company operates through Regulated Operations, ALLETE Clean Energy, and Corporate and Other segments. It generates electricity from coal-fired, biomass co-fired / natural gas, hydroelectric, wind, and solar. In addition, the company provides regulated utility electric services in northwestern Wisconsin to approximately 15,000 electric customers, 13,000 natural gas customers, and 10,000 water customers, as well as regulated utility electric services in northeastern Minnesota to approximately 150,000 retail customers and 14 non-affiliated municipal customers.