ALLETE, Inc. (NYSE:ALE) Increases Dividend to $0.71 Per Share

ALLETE, Inc. (NYSE:ALE) declared a quarterly dividend on Friday, October 25th, RTT News reports. Shareholders 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 4.39%. This is a positive change from ALLETE’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.70.

ALLETE has increased its dividend by an average of 3.1% annually over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 14 consecutive years. ALLETE has a dividend payout ratio of 69.3% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings.

ALLETE Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:ALE opened at $64.28 on Friday. The business has a fifty day moving average of $63.90 and a 200-day moving average of $62.99. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.51, a quick ratio of 0.83 and a current ratio of 1.45. ALLETE has a twelve month low of $52.30 and a twelve month high of $65.86. The firm has a market cap of $3.71 billion, a PE ratio of 16.78 and a beta of 0.80.

ALLETE (NYSE:ALE) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 1st. The utilities provider reported $0.57 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.87 by ($0.30). ALLETE had a net margin of 14.36% and a return on equity of 7.07%. The company had revenue of $354.50 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $547.24 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $0.90 EPS. The company’s revenue was down 33.6% compared to the same quarter last year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have commented on ALE. StockNews.com assumed coverage on ALLETE in a research report on Tuesday. They issued a “hold” rating on the stock. Sidoti upgraded ALLETE from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, September 30th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, ALLETE presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $62.00.

About ALLETE

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.