ALLETE, Inc. (NYSE:ALE) Plans Dividend Increase – $0.71 Per Share

ALLETE, Inc. (NYSE:ALE) declared a quarterly dividend on Friday, October 25th, RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Friday, November 15th will be given a dividend of 0.705 per share by the utilities provider on Sunday, December 1st. This represents a $2.82 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.39%. This is a boost from ALLETE’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.70.

ALLETE has raised its dividend by an average of 3.1% annually over the last three years and has increased its dividend every year for the last 14 years. ALLETE has a dividend payout ratio of 69.3% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings.

ALLETE Trading Down 0.1 %

Shares of ALLETE stock traded down $0.04 during trading on Friday, hitting $64.30. 163,450 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 361,195. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.71 billion, a P/E ratio of 16.81 and a beta of 0.80. ALLETE has a 1-year low of $52.30 and a 1-year high of $65.86. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $63.88 and its 200 day moving average price is $62.97. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.51, a current ratio of 1.45 and a quick ratio of 0.83.

ALLETE (NYSE:ALE) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, August 1st. The utilities provider reported $0.57 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.87 by ($0.30). The company had revenue of $354.50 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $547.24 million. ALLETE had a return on equity of 7.07% and a net margin of 14.36%. ALLETE’s quarterly revenue was down 33.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $0.90 earnings per share.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts recently issued reports on ALE shares. Sidoti raised ALLETE from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, September 30th. StockNews.com started coverage on ALLETE in a research note on Tuesday. They set a “hold” rating for the company. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $62.00.

About ALLETE

ALLETE, Inc operates as an energy company. The company operates through Regulated Operations, ALLETE Clean Energy, and Corporate and Other segments. It generates electricity from coal-fired, biomass co-fired / natural gas, hydroelectric, wind, and solar. In addition, the company provides regulated utility electric services in northwestern Wisconsin to approximately 15,000 electric customers, 13,000 natural gas customers, and 10,000 water customers, as well as regulated utility electric services in northeastern Minnesota to approximately 150,000 retail customers and 14 non-affiliated municipal customers.