Fortis Inc. (NYSE:FTS) Plans Quarterly Dividend of $0.44

Fortis Inc. (NYSE:FTS) announced a quarterly dividend on Friday, December 6th,Wall Street Journal reports. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, February 18th will be given a dividend of 0.4382 per share by the utilities provider on Saturday, March 1st. This represents a $1.75 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.94%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, February 18th.

Fortis has raised its dividend by an average of 5.7% annually over the last three years. Fortis has a payout ratio of 72.4% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Fortis to earn $2.42 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.76 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 72.7%.

Fortis Price Performance

Shares of Fortis stock traded down $0.41 on Friday, hitting $44.48. 553,844 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 716,454. The company has a quick ratio of 0.58, a current ratio of 0.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.32. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $44.32 and a 200 day moving average price of $42.56. The stock has a market capitalization of $22.12 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.87, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.04 and a beta of 0.49. Fortis has a 1-year low of $36.86 and a 1-year high of $46.06.

Fortis (NYSE:FTS) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, November 5th. The utilities provider reported $0.85 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.59 by $0.26. The firm had revenue of $2.03 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.01 billion. Fortis had a return on equity of 7.01% and a net margin of 14.06%. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $0.63 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Fortis will post 2.32 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on FTS. UBS Group raised shares of Fortis to a “strong sell” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 10th. Raymond James lowered shares of Fortis from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, November 6th. Finally, Bank of America initiated coverage on shares of Fortis in a report on Friday, September 20th. They set an “underperform” rating for the company. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and two have given a hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Reduce”.

About Fortis

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.