Analysts Set Unitil Corporation (NYSE:UTL) Target Price at $56.50

Unitil Corporation (NYSE:UTL) has been given a consensus recommendation of “Hold” by the six ratings firms that are presently covering the firm, MarketBeat.com reports. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the company. The average 12 month price objective among brokerages that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $58.6667.

UTL has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. Huntington assumed coverage on Unitil in a research report on Monday, September 14th. They issued an “outperform” rating and a $63.00 target price on the stock. Weiss Ratings downgraded shares of Unitil from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 8th.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Unitil

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Allworth Financial LP raised its stake in shares of Unitil by 439.3% in the 2nd quarter. Allworth Financial LP now owns 480 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $25,000 after purchasing an additional 391 shares in the last quarter. Nykredit A S acquired a new position in Unitil in the second quarter worth about $59,000. Allianz Asset Management GmbH bought a new stake in Unitil in the second quarter valued at about $278,000. Corient Private Wealth LP increased its holdings in Unitil by 5.6% in the second quarter. Corient Private Wealth LP now owns 15,508 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $817,000 after buying an additional 818 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Amundi bought a new stake in Unitil in the second quarter valued at about $641,000. Institutional investors own 76.76% of the company’s stock.

Unitil Stock Down 2.5%

Shares of Unitil stock opened at $51.82 on Friday. The business has a 50-day moving average of $53.86 and a 200-day moving average of $52.70. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.06, a current ratio of 0.49 and a quick ratio of 0.45. The company has a market capitalization of $945.16 million, a PE ratio of 16.35 and a beta of 0.32. Unitil has a 1-year low of $45.17 and a 1-year high of $57.26.

Unitil (NYSE:UTL) last released its quarterly earnings results on Monday, August 3rd. The utilities provider reported $0.29 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.26 by $0.03. The business had revenue of $113.19 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $113.19 million. Unitil had a return on equity of 9.53% and a net margin of 9.49%. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Unitil will post 3.31 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Unitil Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, August 31st. Shareholders of record on Monday, August 17th were paid a dividend of $0.475 per share. This represents a $1.90 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.7%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, August 17th. Unitil’s dividend payout ratio is 59.94%.

Unitil Company Profile

Unitil Corporation (NYSE: UTL) is a regulated public utility holding company that provides electric and natural gas distribution services to customers in New England. Through its operating subsidiaries, the company delivers energy to residential, commercial and industrial customers and maintains the local utility infrastructure needed to support those services.

Unitil Energy Systems provides electric distribution service in southeastern New Hampshire. Fitchburg Gas and Electric Light Company serves customers in north-central Massachusetts with electric and natural gas distribution, while Northern Utilities provides natural gas distribution in parts of New Hampshire and southern Maine.

Headquartered in Hampton, New Hampshire, Unitil traces its history to the consolidation of smaller New England utilities and has operated as a publicly traded utility company since 1984.