Updating Fortis Inc.

Article Excerpt

FORTIS INC. $43 (www.fortisinc.com) owns electrical utilities across Canada, the U.S. and the Caribbean; it also distributes natural gas in British Columbia. The company completed the purchase of ITC Holdings on October 14, 2016, for $11.3 billion U.S. This firm owns 25,100 kilometres of high-voltage power lines in the U.S. Midwest. Fortis has now sold 19.9% of ITC to Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund for $1.2 billion U.S. If you exclude costs related to the ITC purchase, along with other unusual items, the company earned $154 million in the third quarter of 2016. That’s a gain of 6.2% from $145 million a year earlier. Per-share earnings rose 3.8%, to $0.54 from $0.52, on more shares outstanding. Thanks to extra cash flow from ITC, Fortis will raise its quarterly dividend with the December 2016 payment by 6.7%, to $0.40 a share from $0.375. The new annual rate of $1.60 yields 3.7%. The company has now increased its dividend each year for the past…