Black Hills Co. (NYSE:BKH) Shares Acquired by Segall Bryant & Hamill LLC

Segall Bryant & Hamill LLC increased its stake in Black Hills Co. (NYSE:BKH) by 46.5% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 35,056 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 11,120 shares during the quarter. Segall Bryant & Hamill LLC’s holdings in Black Hills were worth $2,051,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in BKH. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Black Hills by 0.4% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 8,602,223 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $503,402,000 after purchasing an additional 37,790 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in Black Hills by 2.1% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,663,157 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $101,671,000 after purchasing an additional 33,853 shares in the last quarter. Zimmer Partners LP bought a new stake in Black Hills in the third quarter valued at about $96,374,000. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. raised its stake in Black Hills by 3.3% during the fourth quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 1,225,653 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $71,725,000 after buying an additional 39,369 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Franklin Resources Inc. lifted its holdings in Black Hills by 109.8% during the 3rd quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 882,646 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $53,356,000 after buying an additional 461,894 shares during the last quarter. 86.71% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Separately, Scotiabank dropped their price target on Black Hills from $67.00 to $66.00 and set a “sector perform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, February 7th.

Black Hills Price Performance

BKH opened at $59.62 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.77, a current ratio of 0.97 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.19. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $59.65 and its 200 day moving average price is $60.08. Black Hills Co. has a fifty-two week low of $50.73 and a fifty-two week high of $65.59. The firm has a market cap of $4.30 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 15.21, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.75 and a beta of 0.68.

Black Hills (NYSE:BKH) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 5th. The utilities provider reported $1.37 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.20 by $0.17. Black Hills had a return on equity of 7.82% and a net margin of 12.84%. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Black Hills Co. will post 4.12 earnings per share for the current year.

Black Hills Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Saturday, March 1st. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, February 18th were given a dividend of $0.676 per share. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, February 18th. This represents a $2.70 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.54%. This is a positive change from Black Hills’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.65. Black Hills’s dividend payout ratio is currently 68.88%.

Black Hills 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.