Black Hills Co. (BKH) to Issue Quarterly Dividend of $0.65 on June 1st

Black Hills Co. (NYSE:BKH) declared a quarterly dividend on Monday, April 22nd, Zacks reports. Shareholders of record on Friday, May 17th will be paid a dividend of 0.65 per share by the utilities provider on Saturday, June 1st. This represents a $2.60 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.78%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, May 16th.

Black Hills has raised its dividend payment by an average of 4.8% per year over the last three years and has raised its dividend every year for the last 1 years. Black Hills has a dividend payout ratio of 63.1% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings.

Black Hills Price Performance

Black Hills stock remained flat at $54.37 during trading hours on Wednesday. 81,002 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 541,350. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15, a current ratio of 0.70 and a quick ratio of 0.56. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $52.79 and a 200-day simple moving average of $52.18. Black Hills has a twelve month low of $46.43 and a twelve month high of $66.85. The company has a market cap of $3.71 billion, a PE ratio of 13.81 and a beta of 0.64.

Black Hills (NYSE:BKH) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 8th. The utilities provider reported $1.17 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.06 by $0.11. Black Hills had a net margin of 11.25% and a return on equity of 8.09%. The firm had revenue of $591.70 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $863.67 million. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $1.11 earnings per share. On average, research analysts expect that Black Hills will post 3.9 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

BKH has been the subject of several recent research reports. Royal Bank of Canada cut their target price on shares of Black Hills from $61.00 to $57.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, February 9th. Scotiabank cut their target price on shares of Black Hills from $58.00 to $54.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a research report on Monday. Finally, StockNews.com lowered shares of Black Hills from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Thursday, March 28th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and four have given a hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $55.00.

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.