Unitil Corporation (NYSE:UTL) Stock Has Average Target Price of $58.67

Shares of Unitil Corporation (NYSE:UTL) have been assigned an average recommendation of “Hold” from the six analysts that are covering the company, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the company. The average 12-month price target among brokers that have covered the stock in the last year is $58.67.

A number of research analysts have commented on UTL shares. Weiss Ratings lowered Unitil from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “hold (c)” rating in a research report on Tuesday. Huntington began coverage on Unitil in a research report on Monday, September 14th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $63.00 target price for the company.

Institutional Trading of Unitil

A number of institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of UTL. BlackRock Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Unitil in the 2nd quarter valued at $152,441,000. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company acquired a new stake in shares of Unitil during the second quarter worth $26,864,000. Heartland Advisors Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Unitil during the second quarter worth $12,242,000. Bank of New York Mellon Corp bought a new stake in Unitil in the second quarter valued at about $5,730,000. Finally, Bank of America Corp DE bought a new stake in Unitil in the second quarter valued at about $5,314,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 76.76% of the company’s stock.

Unitil Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:UTL opened at $56.54 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15, a current ratio of 0.50 and a quick ratio of 0.45. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $53.08 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $52.51. Unitil has a fifty-two week low of $46.91 and a fifty-two week high of $57.26. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.05 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.18 and a beta of 0.27.

Unitil (NYSE:UTL) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Monday, November 2nd. The utilities provider reported ($0.04) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.06) by $0.02. Unitil had a return on equity of 9.19% and a net margin of 9.16%. The company had revenue of $112.60 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $113.11 million. As a group, analysts predict that Unitil will post 3.31 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Unitil Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, November 30th. Stockholders of record on Friday, November 13th will be paid a $0.4750 dividend. This represents a $1.90 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.4%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, November 13th. Unitil’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 59.94%.

Unitil Company Profile

Unitil Corporation is a regulated public utility holding company that delivers electricity and natural gas to residential, commercial and industrial customers in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Its operations focus primarily on the distribution of energy through local utility networks rather than the production of electricity or natural gas.

Through its operating subsidiaries, Unitil provides electric distribution service in portions of New Hampshire and Massachusetts and natural gas distribution service in parts of southern New Hampshire and central Massachusetts.