Mercer Global Advisors Inc. ADV Grows Position in Fortis Inc. (NYSE:FTS)

Mercer Global Advisors Inc. ADV grew its holdings in shares of Fortis Inc. (NYSE:FTS) by 22.9% during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The fund owned 14,835 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after buying an additional 2,768 shares during the quarter. Mercer Global Advisors Inc. ADV’s holdings in Fortis were worth $576,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the business. CIBC Asset Management Inc boosted its position in Fortis by 4.2% in the 2nd quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc now owns 3,938,001 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $152,955,000 after buying an additional 158,178 shares during the period. Fiera Capital Corp boosted its holdings in shares of Fortis by 10.8% in the 2nd quarter. Fiera Capital Corp now owns 858,512 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $33,380,000 after buying an additional 83,858 shares in the last quarter. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale grew its holdings in Fortis by 11.1% in the first quarter. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale now owns 300,509 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $11,803,000 after purchasing an additional 30,103 shares during the last quarter. Natixis Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of Fortis by 56.4% during the second quarter. Natixis Advisors LLC now owns 48,399 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $1,880,000 after purchasing an additional 17,450 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Walleye Trading LLC purchased a new position in Fortis during the 1st quarter worth $758,000. 57.77% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

FTS has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. UBS Group raised shares of Fortis to a “strong sell” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 10th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Fortis from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Sunday, August 4th. Finally, Bank of America initiated coverage on Fortis in a research note on Friday, September 20th. They issued 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. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Reduce” and an average target price of $61.00.

Fortis Trading Up 0.4 %

Shares of NYSE:FTS opened at $45.56 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $22.56 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.64, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.99 and a beta of 0.47. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $43.49 and its 200-day moving average price is $40.86. 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 1 year low of $36.30 and a 1 year high of $45.83.

Fortis (NYSE:FTS) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 31st. The utilities provider reported $0.49 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.47 by $0.02. Fortis had a return on equity of 7.04% and a net margin of 13.90%. The firm had revenue of $1.95 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.96 billion. On average, equities research analysts forecast that Fortis Inc. will post 2.34 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Fortis Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Sunday, December 1st. Investors of record on Monday, November 18th will be given a dividend of $0.615 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, November 18th. This is a positive change from Fortis’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.43. This represents a $2.46 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 5.40%. Fortis’s payout ratio is presently 73.28%.

Fortis Profile

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.