Unitil (NYSE:UTL) Now Covered by Analysts at Huntington

Equities researchers at Huntington assumed coverage on shares of Unitil (NYSE:UTL) in a research note issued to investors on Monday, Marketbeat reports. The brokerage set an “outperform” rating and a $63.00 price target on the utilities provider’s stock. Huntington’s price objective would suggest a potential upside of 18.60% from the company’s current price.

Separately, Weiss Ratings cut shares of Unitil from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 8th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $58.67.

Unitil Stock Up 0.1%

UTL stock traded up $0.03 during mid-day trading on Monday, reaching $53.12. The company had a trading volume of 7,177 shares, compared to its average volume of 124,194. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $53.88 and a 200 day simple moving average of $52.69. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.06, a quick ratio of 0.45 and a current ratio of 0.49. Unitil has a fifty-two week low of $45.17 and a fifty-two week high of $57.26. The company has a market capitalization of $968.91 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.78 and a beta of 0.32.

Unitil (NYSE:UTL) last posted its earnings results on Monday, August 3rd. The utilities provider reported $0.29 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.26 by $0.03. Unitil had a return on equity of 9.53% and a net margin of 9.49%.The firm had revenue of $113.19 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $113.19 million. Analysts forecast that Unitil will post 3.31 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in UTL. Deutsche Bank AG bought a new position in shares of Unitil during the second quarter valued at $2,057,000. Wedge Capital Management L L P NC increased its holdings in Unitil by 87.1% during the second quarter. Wedge Capital Management L L P NC now owns 51,839 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $2,731,000 after buying an additional 24,131 shares during the last quarter. Quantinno Capital Management LP increased its stake in shares of Unitil by 91.5% in the 1st quarter. Quantinno Capital Management LP now owns 41,347 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $2,160,000 after purchasing an additional 19,760 shares in the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp bought a new position in shares of Unitil in the second quarter worth about $5,730,000. Finally, BlackRock Inc. purchased a new position in Unitil during the second quarter valued at approximately $152,441,000. Institutional investors own 76.76% of the company’s stock.

About Unitil

Unitil Corporation (NYSE: UTL) is a regulated public utility holding company that provides electric and natural gas distribution services to customers in New England. Through its operating subsidiaries, the company delivers energy to residential, commercial and industrial customers and maintains the local utility infrastructure needed to support those services.

Unitil Energy Systems provides electric distribution service in southeastern New Hampshire. Fitchburg Gas and Electric Light Company serves customers in north-central Massachusetts with electric and natural gas distribution, while Northern Utilities provides natural gas distribution in parts of New Hampshire and southern Maine.

Headquartered in Hampton, New Hampshire, Unitil traces its history to the consolidation of smaller New England utilities and has operated as a publicly traded utility company since 1984.