The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company Has $142.17 Million Stake in Fortis Inc. (NYSE:FTS)

The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company grew its position in Fortis Inc. (NYSE:FTS) by 0.7% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 3,126,939 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 22,411 shares during the quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company owned about 0.63% of Fortis worth $142,172,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its position in shares of Fortis by 4.5% in the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 489,343 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $19,006,000 after purchasing an additional 21,059 shares during the last quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc grew its position in Fortis by 4.2% during the second quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc now owns 3,938,001 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $152,955,000 after buying an additional 158,178 shares in the last quarter. Fiera Capital Corp grew its position in Fortis by 10.8% during the second quarter. Fiera Capital Corp now owns 858,512 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $33,380,000 after buying an additional 83,858 shares in the last quarter. Intact Investment Management Inc. grew its position in Fortis by 163.8% during the third quarter. Intact Investment Management Inc. now owns 227,700 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $10,347,000 after buying an additional 141,400 shares in the last quarter. Finally, DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale grew its position in Fortis by 11.1% during the first quarter. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale now owns 300,509 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $11,803,000 after buying an additional 30,103 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 57.77% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts recently issued reports on FTS shares. UBS Group raised Fortis to a “strong sell” rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 10th. StockNews.com raised Fortis from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Sunday, August 4th. Raymond James downgraded Fortis from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, November 6th. Finally, Bank of America started coverage on Fortis in a research report on Friday, September 20th. They set an “underperform” rating on the stock. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and two have given a hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Fortis has an average rating of “Reduce”.

Fortis Stock Down 1.0 %

NYSE FTS opened at $44.58 on Wednesday. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $44.35 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $42.40. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.26, a current ratio of 0.69 and a quick ratio of 0.58. Fortis Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $36.86 and a fifty-two week high of $46.06. The stock has a market capitalization of $22.17 billion, a PE ratio of 18.73, a PEG ratio of 4.13 and a beta of 0.47.

Fortis (NYSE:FTS) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, November 5th. The utilities provider reported $0.85 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.59 by $0.26. Fortis had a return on equity of 7.03% and a net margin of 14.06%. The firm had revenue of $2.03 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.01 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $0.63 earnings per share. Equities analysts expect that Fortis Inc. will post 2.32 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Fortis Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Sunday, December 1st. Stockholders of record on Monday, November 18th will be paid a $0.615 dividend. This represents a $2.46 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 5.52%. This is a boost from Fortis’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.43. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, November 18th. Fortis’s dividend payout ratio is presently 76.47%.

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.