Northwest Natural Holding Announces Quarterly Dividend of $0.49 (NYSE:NWN)

Northwest Natural Holding (NYSE:NWN) declared a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, January 14th,RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 31st will be given a dividend of 0.49 per share by the utilities provider on Friday, February 14th. This represents a $1.96 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 4.98%.

Northwest Natural has raised its dividend by an average of 0.5% annually over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 70 consecutive years. Northwest Natural has a payout ratio of 64.9% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect Northwest Natural to earn $2.91 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.96 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 67.4%.

Northwest Natural Trading Up 1.7 %

Shares of NWN stock opened at $39.37 on Wednesday. Northwest Natural has a fifty-two week low of $34.82 and a fifty-two week high of $44.25. The company has a quick ratio of 0.53, a current ratio of 0.72 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $40.99 and a 200-day simple moving average of $39.86. The stock has a market cap of $1.58 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.57 and a beta of 0.62.

Northwest Natural (NYSE:NWN) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, November 12th. The utilities provider reported ($0.71) earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.79) by $0.08. The business had revenue of $136.90 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $132.47 million. Northwest Natural had a net margin of 6.90% and a return on equity of 5.89%. The company’s revenue was down 3.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted ($0.65) earnings per share. On average, analysts forecast that Northwest Natural will post 2.33 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Northwest Natural

In other news, CEO David Hugo Anderson sold 7,500 shares of Northwest Natural stock in a transaction dated Friday, December 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $39.78, for a total value of $298,350.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 144,298 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,740,174.44. The trade was a 4.94 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. 0.84% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Separately, Stifel Nicolaus reduced their target price on Northwest Natural from $45.00 to $44.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, November 14th.

About Northwest Natural

Northwest Natural Holding Company, through its subsidiary, Northwest Natural Gas Company, provides regulated natural gas distribution services to residential, commercial, and industrial customers in the United States. The company operates a mist gas storage facility contracted to other utilities, third-party marketers, and electric generators; offers natural gas asset management services; and operates an appliance retail center.