Analysts Set Unitil Corporation (NYSE:UTL) Price Target at $56.50

Shares of Unitil Corporation (NYSE:UTL) have earned a consensus recommendation of “Hold” from the six ratings firms that are currently covering the stock, Marketbeat.com reports. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and one has assigned a buy recommendation to the company. The average 12-month target price among analysts that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $58.6667.

UTL has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. Huntington assumed coverage on Unitil in a research report on Monday. They set an “outperform” rating and a $63.00 price target for the company. Weiss Ratings lowered Unitil from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 8th.

Unitil Price Performance

UTL opened at $53.17 on Friday. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $53.88 and a 200 day simple moving average of $52.71. The firm has a market cap of $969.82 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.77 and a beta of 0.32. Unitil has a twelve month low of $45.17 and a twelve month high of $57.26. The company has a current ratio of 0.49, a quick ratio of 0.45 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.06.

Unitil (NYSE:UTL) last released 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. The company had revenue of $113.19 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $113.19 million. Unitil had a net margin of 9.49% and a return on equity of 9.53%. Equities research analysts expect that Unitil will post 3.31 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Unitil Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, August 31st. Shareholders of record on Monday, August 17th were paid a dividend of $0.475 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, August 17th. This represents a $1.90 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.6%. Unitil’s dividend payout ratio is currently 59.94%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Allworth Financial LP lifted its position in shares of Unitil by 439.3% in the 2nd quarter. Allworth Financial LP now owns 480 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $25,000 after acquiring an additional 391 shares in the last quarter. Nykredit A S purchased a new stake in Unitil in the 2nd quarter worth about $59,000. Allianz Asset Management GmbH acquired a new stake in Unitil during the 2nd quarter worth about $278,000. Corient Private Wealth LP boosted its position in Unitil by 5.6% during the 2nd quarter. Corient Private Wealth LP now owns 15,508 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $817,000 after acquiring an additional 818 shares during the period. Finally, Amundi purchased a new position in Unitil during the 2nd quarter valued at about $641,000. 76.76% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Unitil Company Profile

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.