Avista Co. (NYSE:AVA) to Issue $0.48 Quarterly Dividend

Avista Co. (NYSE:AVA) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, May 2nd, Wall Street Journal reports. Shareholders of record on Thursday, May 23rd will be given a dividend of 0.475 per share by the utilities provider on Friday, June 14th. This represents a $1.90 annualized dividend and a yield of 5.16%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, May 22nd.

Avista has raised its dividend by an average of 4.3% annually over the last three years and has increased its dividend every year for the last 22 years. Avista has a dividend payout ratio of 73.6% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings.

Avista Stock Up 0.4 %

Shares of AVA traded up $0.15 during mid-day trading on Thursday, hitting $36.79. 478,035 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 570,018. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.03, a current ratio of 0.85 and a quick ratio of 0.65. Avista has a 52 week low of $30.53 and a 52 week high of $44.76. The company has a market cap of $2.88 billion, a PE ratio of 16.35 and a beta of 0.48. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $34.35 and a 200 day simple moving average of $34.31.

Avista (NYSE:AVA) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, May 1st. The utilities provider reported $0.91 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.00 by ($0.09). Avista had a net margin of 9.77% and a return on equity of 7.07%. The business had revenue of $594.90 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $469.34 million. During the same period last year, the business posted $0.73 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 29.3% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts forecast that Avista will post 2.46 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several analysts recently issued reports on the company. Guggenheim upgraded Avista from a “sell” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $34.00 target price on the stock in a report on Monday, January 22nd. StockNews.com upgraded Avista from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, February 24th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating and three have assigned a hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $33.50.

About Avista

Avista Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, operates as an electric and natural gas utility company. It operates in two segments, Avista Utilities and AEL&P. The Avista Utilities segment provides electric distribution and transmission, and natural gas distribution services in parts of eastern Washington and northern Idaho; and natural gas distribution services in parts of northeastern and southwestern Oregon, as well as generates electricity in Washington, Idaho, Oregon, and Montana.