NiSource Inc. Plans Quarterly Dividend of $0.28 (NYSE:NI)

NiSource Inc. (NYSE:NI) declared a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, March 18th, RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, April 30th will be paid a dividend of 0.28 per share by the utilities provider on Tuesday, May 20th. This represents a $1.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.88%.

NiSource has raised its dividend by an average of 6.4% per year over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 14 consecutive years. NiSource has a dividend payout ratio of 55.7% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect NiSource to earn $2.03 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.12 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 55.2%.

NiSource Trading Down 1.2 %

NI stock traded down $0.46 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, reaching $38.91. The company had a trading volume of 5,973,533 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,676,539. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.13, a current ratio of 0.51 and a quick ratio of 0.41. The company has a market capitalization of $18.28 billion, a PE ratio of 24.02, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.56 and a beta of 0.50. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $38.42 and a 200 day moving average of $36.50. NiSource has a 12 month low of $26.26 and a 12 month high of $41.45.

NiSource (NYSE:NI) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, February 12th. The utilities provider reported $0.49 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.54 by ($0.05). NiSource had a return on equity of 7.87% and a net margin of 13.94%. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $0.53 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts predict that NiSource will post 1.91 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Separately, Wells Fargo & Company increased their price objective on shares of NiSource from $39.00 to $43.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, February 13th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a buy rating, Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average target price of $38.13.

Insider Buying and Selling at NiSource

In other NiSource news, CAO Gunnar Gode sold 5,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $39.92, for a total value of $219,560.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 24,758 shares in the company, valued at $988,339.36. This trade represents a 18.18 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. 0.13% of the stock is owned by insiders.

NiSource Company Profile

NiSource Inc, an energy holding company, operates as a regulated natural gas and electric utility company in the United States. It operates in two segments, Gas Distribution Operations and Electric Operations. The company distributes natural gas to approximately 3.3 million customers through approximately 55,000 miles of distribution main pipeline and the associated individual customer service lines; and 1,000 miles of transmission main pipeline in northern Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kentucky, and Maryland.