Triasima Portfolio Management inc. Increases Stake in Fortis $FTS

Triasima Portfolio Management inc. increased its position in shares of Fortis (NYSE:FTS) by 85.5% during the 2nd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 209,745 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 96,685 shares during the period. Fortis makes up about 1.8% of Triasima Portfolio Management inc.’s portfolio, making the stock its 11th biggest position. Triasima Portfolio Management inc.’s holdings in Fortis were worth $9,995,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in FTS. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of Fortis by 218.6% during the first quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 3,648,592 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $166,303,000 after buying an additional 2,503,531 shares during the period. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. grew its stake in Fortis by 52.0% in the first quarter. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. now owns 4,922,870 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $224,278,000 after purchasing an additional 1,683,377 shares during the last quarter. Caisse DE Depot ET Placement DU Quebec purchased a new position in Fortis in the first quarter valued at about $54,838,000. TD Asset Management Inc grew its stake in Fortis by 4.9% in the first quarter. TD Asset Management Inc now owns 12,870,736 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $586,192,000 after purchasing an additional 604,615 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in Fortis by 2.5% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 22,265,742 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $1,014,227,000 after purchasing an additional 542,749 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 57.77% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

FTS has been the topic of several analyst reports. Raymond James Financial reiterated an “outperform” rating on shares of Fortis in a research note on Tuesday, August 5th. CIBC upgraded Fortis from a “neutral” rating to a “sector outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, July 21st. Desjardins upgraded Fortis from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 5th. BMO Capital Markets reiterated a “market perform” rating on shares of Fortis in a research note on Monday, August 4th. Finally, Weiss Ratings reiterated a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Fortis in a research note on Saturday, September 27th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, five have assigned a Buy rating and six have issued a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Fortis has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $72.00.

Fortis Price Performance

Shares of FTS stock opened at $50.39 on Wednesday. Fortis has a fifty-two week low of $40.32 and a fifty-two week high of $51.45. The firm has a market capitalization of $25.38 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.73, a PEG ratio of 3.90 and a beta of 0.50. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.30, a quick ratio of 0.47 and a current ratio of 0.58. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $49.89 and its 200-day simple moving average is $48.27.

Fortis (NYSE:FTS) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Friday, August 1st. The utilities provider reported $0.55 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.51 by $0.04. Fortis had a return on equity of 7.24% and a net margin of 14.48%.The business had revenue of $2.03 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.91 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $0.67 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Fortis will post 2.35 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Fortis Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, September 1st. Investors of record on Tuesday, August 19th were given a $0.4448 dividend. This is an increase from Fortis’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.43. This represents a $1.78 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.5%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, August 19th. Fortis’s payout ratio is currently 73.25%.

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.