ALLETE, Inc. (NYSE:ALE) Increases Dividend to $0.73 Per Share

ALLETE, Inc. (NYSE:ALE) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, January 30th,RTT News reports. Investors of record on Friday, February 14th will be paid a dividend of 0.73 per share by the utilities provider on Saturday, March 1st. This represents a $2.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 4.47%. This is an increase from ALLETE’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.71.

ALLETE has increased its dividend payment by an average of 3.8% annually over the last three years and has increased its dividend every year for the last 14 years. ALLETE has a payout ratio of 64.2% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings.

ALLETE Price Performance

Shares of ALE opened at $65.40 on Thursday. ALLETE has a 12 month low of $55.86 and a 12 month high of $65.95. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.51, a current ratio of 1.45 and a quick ratio of 0.95. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $64.97 and a 200 day moving average price of $64.39. The company has a market cap of $3.78 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.96 and a beta of 0.80.

ALLETE (NYSE:ALE) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, October 30th. The utilities provider reported $0.78 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.99 by ($0.21). The firm had revenue of $407.20 million during the quarter. ALLETE had a return on equity of 5.99% and a net margin of 11.49%. The company’s revenue was up 7.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business posted $1.49 EPS.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Separately, StockNews.com started coverage on ALLETE in a research report on Friday, January 10th. They set a “hold” rating for the company.

ALLETE Company Profile

ALLETE, Inc operates as an energy company. The company operates through Regulated Operations, ALLETE Clean Energy, and Corporate and Other segments. It generates electricity from coal-fired, biomass co-fired / natural gas, hydroelectric, wind, and solar. In addition, the company provides regulated utility electric services in northwestern Wisconsin to approximately 15,000 electric customers, 13,000 natural gas customers, and 10,000 water customers, as well as regulated utility electric services in northeastern Minnesota to approximately 150,000 retail customers and 14 non-affiliated municipal customers.