Cumberland Partners Ltd Has $1.22 Million Holdings in Fortis Inc. (NYSE:FTS)

Cumberland Partners Ltd grew its stake in shares of Fortis Inc. (NYSE:FTS) by 5.7% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 29,500 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 1,600 shares during the period. Cumberland Partners Ltd’s holdings in Fortis were worth $1,220,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in FTS. Invesco Ltd. increased its stake in Fortis by 8.4% in the third quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 1,845,400 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $70,107,000 after acquiring an additional 142,731 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in Fortis by 1.9% in the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 19,421,010 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $737,804,000 after acquiring an additional 353,112 shares during the last quarter. QV Investors Inc. increased its stake in Fortis by 18.1% in the fourth quarter. QV Investors Inc. now owns 1,016,319 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $42,014,000 after acquiring an additional 155,821 shares during the last quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. increased its stake in Fortis by 32.4% in the third quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 158,635 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $6,027,000 after acquiring an additional 38,803 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc increased its stake in Fortis by 1.7% in the third quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 5,410,825 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $206,425,000 after acquiring an additional 90,274 shares during the last quarter. 57.77% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Separately, StockNews.com cut shares of Fortis from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research note on Thursday, April 11th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, two have given a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Fortis presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $55.13.

Fortis Trading Up 0.4 %

FTS stock traded up $0.15 during midday trading on Wednesday, hitting $39.25. The stock had a trading volume of 337,043 shares, compared to its average volume of 841,021. The firm has a market cap of $19.35 billion, a P/E ratio of 17.05, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.73 and a beta of 0.42. The company has a current ratio of 0.67, a quick ratio of 0.58 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.27. Fortis Inc. has a 1-year low of $36.30 and a 1-year high of $46.28. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $39.08 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $39.98.

Fortis (NYSE:FTS) last released its earnings results on Friday, February 9th. The utilities provider reported $0.53 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.52 by $0.01. The business had revenue of $2.12 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.39 billion. Fortis had a net margin of 13.22% and a return on equity of 7.00%. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $0.53 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Fortis Inc. will post 2.39 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Fortis Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Saturday, June 1st. Stockholders of record on Friday, May 17th will be issued a dividend of $0.4382 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, May 16th. This represents a $1.75 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.47%. This is a positive change from Fortis’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.44. Fortis’s dividend payout ratio is currently 55.65%.

About Fortis

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.