Unitil (NYSE:UTL) Announces Quarterly Earnings Results, Beats Expectations By $0.02 EPS

Unitil (NYSE:UTL) announced its quarterly earnings data on Monday. The utilities provider reported ($0.04) earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.06) by $0.02, FiscalAI reports. The business had revenue of $112.60 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $113.11 million. Unitil had a net margin of 9.16% and a return on equity of 9.23%.

Unitil Price Performance

Shares of NYSE UTL opened at $54.92 on Wednesday. Unitil has a twelve month low of $46.91 and a twelve month high of $57.26. The firm has a market cap of $1.00 billion, a P/E ratio of 17.66 and a beta of 0.27. The company has a 50 day moving average of $53.03 and a 200 day moving average of $52.48. The company has a quick ratio of 0.45, a current ratio of 0.49 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.06.

Unitil Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, November 30th. Investors of record on Friday, November 13th will be given a dividend of $0.4750 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, November 13th. This represents a $1.90 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.5%. Unitil’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 59.94%.

Key Stories Impacting Unitil

Here are the key news stories impacting Unitil this week:

• Positive Sentiment: One earnings report said Unitil’s quarterly loss was $0.04 per share, $0.02 better than analysts’ consensus estimate of a $0.06 loss. MarketBeat earnings report
• Neutral Sentiment: Brokerage data cited an average price target of $58.67, above the stock’s recent trading level, though the provided report does not identify a new rating or target change. Average analyst price target
• Negative Sentiment: Unitil’s release reported a Q3 net loss of $1.5 million, or $0.08 per share—$1.2 million and $0.06 per share worse than a year earlier. Revenue was also below the $113.1 million consensus estimate: coverage cited figures ranging from $109.5 million to $112.6 million. The variation in reported EPS and revenue figures makes the comparison across reports less clear, but the company’s year-over-year loss deterioration and revenue miss are potential headwinds. Unitil Q3 earnings release Revenue estimate comparison

Analyst Ratings Changes

UTL has been the subject of several recent research reports. Weiss Ratings lowered shares of Unitil from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “hold (c)” rating in a report on Tuesday. Huntington started coverage on Unitil in a research report on Monday, September 14th. They issued an “outperform” rating and a $63.00 price target on the stock. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have given a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $58.67.

About Unitil

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.