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 438,000 retail customers in southeastern Arizona; and 100,000 retail customers in Arizona's Mohave and Santa Cruz counties with an aggregate capacity of 3,485 megawatts (MW), including 53 MW of solar capacity and 252 MV of wind capacity. The company also sells wholesale electricity to other entities in the western United States; owns gas-fired and hydroelectric generating capacity totaling 65 MW; and distributes natural gas to approximately 1,065,000 residential, commercial, and industrial customers in British Columbia, Canada. In addition, it owns and operates the electricity distribution system that serves approximately 577,000 customers in southern and central Alberta; owns 4 hydroelectric generating facilities with a combined capacity of 225 MW; and provides operation, maintenance, and management services to five hydroelectric generating facilities. Further, the company distributes electricity in the island portion of Newfoundland and Labrador with an installed generating capacity of 143 MW; and on Prince Edward Island with a generating capacity of 130 MW. Additionally, it provides integrated electric utility service to approximately 68,000 customers in Ontario; approximately 272,000 customers in Newfoundland and Labrador; approximately 32,000 customers on Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands; and approximately 16,000 customers on certain islands in Turks and Caicos. The company also holds long-term contracted generation assets in Belize consisting of 3 hydroelectric generating facilities with a combined capacity of 51 MW; and the Aitken Creek natural gas storage facility. It also owns and operates approximately 90,200 circuit Kilometers (km) of distribution lines; and approximately 50,500 km of natural gas pipelines. Fortis Inc. was founded in 1885 and is headquartered in St. John's, Canada.
Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades
Several brokerages have weighed in on FTS. Wells Fargo & Company downgraded Fortis from an "equal weight" rating to an "underweight" rating in a report on Wednesday, June 1st. National Bank Financial upped their target price on Fortis from C$59.00 to C$60.00 in a research report on Friday, May 6th. Edward Jones cut Fortis from a "buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 27th. Finally, UBS Group cut Fortis from a "neutral" rating to a "sell" rating and set a $56.00 price target for the company. in a report on Thursday, June 30th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have issued a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and an average price target of $59.88.
Fortis Stock Down 0.8 %
NYSE:FTS traded down $0.35 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $46.09. 16,934 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 688,064. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $46.68 and a 200 day moving average price of $47.85. The company has a current ratio of 0.64, a quick ratio of 0.53 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.23. Fortis has a fifty-two week low of $43.12 and a fifty-two week high of $51.66. The firm has a market cap of $22.06 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.18, a PEG ratio of 4.08 and a beta of 0.33.
Fortis Cuts Dividend
The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, September 1st. Shareholders of record on Friday, August 19th will be issued a dividend of $0.4149 per share. This represents a $1.66 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.60%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, August 18th. Fortis's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 80.29%.