Fortis $FTS Shares Bought by Gold Investment Management Ltd.

Gold Investment Management Ltd. grew its stake in shares of Fortis (NYSE:FTS) by 2.2% in the 2nd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 76,702 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 1,638 shares during the quarter. Fortis makes up about 1.4% of Gold Investment Management Ltd.’s holdings, making the stock its 23rd largest position. Gold Investment Management Ltd.’s holdings in Fortis were worth $3,662,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in FTS. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. grew its holdings in Fortis by 218.6% during the 1st quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 3,648,592 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $166,303,000 after acquiring an additional 2,503,531 shares in the last quarter. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. lifted its position in shares of Fortis by 52.0% in the 1st quarter. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. now owns 4,922,870 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $224,278,000 after buying an additional 1,683,377 shares during the last quarter. Caisse DE Depot ET Placement DU Quebec bought a new position in shares of Fortis in the 1st quarter worth about $54,838,000. TD Asset Management Inc lifted its position in shares of Fortis by 4.9% in the 1st quarter. TD Asset Management Inc now owns 12,870,736 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $586,192,000 after buying an additional 604,615 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Fortis by 2.5% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 22,265,742 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $1,014,227,000 after buying an additional 542,749 shares during the last quarter. 57.77% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research analysts have recently issued reports on FTS shares. CIBC upgraded shares of Fortis from a “neutral” rating to a “sector outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, July 21st. Zacks Research downgraded shares of Fortis from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, August 18th. Desjardins upgraded shares of Fortis from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 5th. Cibc World Mkts upgraded shares of Fortis from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday, July 21st. Finally, National Bankshares reiterated a “sector perform” rating on shares of Fortis in a research report on Tuesday, August 5th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, four have assigned a Buy rating and five have given a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Fortis has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $72.00.

Fortis Stock Down 0.6%

FTS stock opened at $50.42 on Thursday. Fortis has a 52 week low of $40.32 and a 52 week high of $51.45. The company has a market capitalization of $25.39 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.75, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.94 and a beta of 0.50. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $49.77 and its two-hundred day moving average is $48.11. The company has a current ratio of 0.58, a quick ratio of 0.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.30.

Fortis (NYSE:FTS) last released its quarterly earnings results on Friday, August 1st. The utilities provider reported $0.55 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.51 by $0.04. Fortis had a net margin of 14.48% and a return on equity of 7.24%. The company had revenue of $2.03 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.91 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.67 EPS. On average, analysts forecast that Fortis will post 2.35 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Fortis Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, September 1st. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, August 19th were given a dividend of $0.4448 per share. This is a positive change from Fortis’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.43. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, August 19th. This represents a $1.78 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.5%. Fortis’s payout ratio is presently 73.25%.

Fortis Company Profile

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 447,000 retail customers in southeastern Arizona; and 103,000 retail customers in Arizona's Mohave and Santa Cruz counties with an aggregate capacity of 3,408 megawatts (MW), including 68 MW of solar capacity and 250 MV of wind capacity.