Black Hills Co. (NYSE:BKH) Plans Dividend Increase – $0.68 Per Share

Black Hills Co. (NYSE:BKH) announced a quarterly dividend on Friday, January 24th,RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, February 18th will be paid a dividend of 0.676 per share by the utilities provider on Saturday, March 1st. This represents a $2.70 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 4.53%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, February 18th. This is a boost from Black Hills’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.65.

Black Hills has raised its dividend payment by an average of 4.3% per year over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 55 consecutive years. Black Hills has a payout ratio of 62.6% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Black Hills to earn $4.41 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $2.70 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 61.2%.

Black Hills Trading Down 1.0 %

Shares of NYSE:BKH opened at $59.71 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.83, a current ratio of 1.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.20. Black Hills has a 52-week low of $50.72 and a 52-week high of $65.59. The stock has a market cap of $4.27 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 15.23, a PEG ratio of 4.30 and a beta of 0.73. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $58.75 and a 200-day moving average price of $59.72.

Black Hills (NYSE:BKH) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 5th. The utilities provider reported $1.37 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.20 by $0.17. Black Hills had a net margin of 12.84% and a return on equity of 7.88%. Equities analysts predict that Black Hills will post 4.13 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Separately, Scotiabank reduced their price objective on Black Hills from $67.00 to $66.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, February 7th.

Black Hills Company Profile

Black Hills Corporation, through its subsidiaries, operates as an electric and natural gas utility company in the United States. The company operates in two segments: Electric Utilities and Gas Utilities. The Electric Utilities segment generates, transmits, and distributes electricity to approximately 222,000 electric utility customers in Colorado, Montana, South Dakota, and Wyoming; and owns and operates 1,394 megawatts of generation capacity and 9,106 miles of electric transmission and distribution lines.