SG Americas Securities LLC Sells 12,385 Shares of Black Hills Co. (NYSE:BKH)

SG Americas Securities LLC lessened its position in shares of Black Hills Co. (NYSE:BKH) by 84.0% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 2,353 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after selling 12,385 shares during the quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC’s holdings in Black Hills were worth $127,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other large investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. State Street Corp raised its stake in shares of Black Hills by 7.1% during the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 7,963,935 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $479,907,000 after acquiring an additional 526,334 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in Black Hills by 3.7% during the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 7,821,296 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $395,679,000 after purchasing an additional 279,987 shares in the last quarter. Macquarie Group Ltd. increased its stake in Black Hills by 0.4% during the 1st quarter. Macquarie Group Ltd. now owns 2,554,967 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $161,218,000 after purchasing an additional 9,330 shares in the last quarter. Fuller & Thaler Asset Management Inc. increased its stake in Black Hills by 16.3% during the 3rd quarter. Fuller & Thaler Asset Management Inc. now owns 1,344,162 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $68,001,000 after purchasing an additional 188,266 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC increased its stake in Black Hills by 3.5% during the 1st quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,312,779 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $82,836,000 after purchasing an additional 44,760 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 86.71% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages have issued reports on BKH. Scotiabank upped their price target on shares of Black Hills from $57.00 to $58.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Friday, February 9th. StockNews.com lowered shares of Black Hills from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research note on Thursday, March 28th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada cut their price target on shares of Black Hills from $61.00 to $57.00 and set a “sector perform” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, February 9th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and four have given a hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $55.80.

Black Hills Stock Up 1.0 %

BKH stock opened at $51.71 on Thursday. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $52.62 and its 200-day simple moving average is $52.00. The company has a market capitalization of $3.53 billion, a P/E ratio of 13.19 and a beta of 0.64. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15, a current ratio of 0.70 and a quick ratio of 0.56. Black Hills Co. has a 12 month low of $46.43 and a 12 month high of $66.85.

Black Hills (NYSE:BKH) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 8th. The utilities provider reported $1.17 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.06 by $0.11. The business had revenue of $591.70 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $863.67 million. Black Hills had a net margin of 11.25% and a return on equity of 8.09%. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $1.11 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Black Hills Co. will post 3.9 earnings per share for the current year.

Black Hills Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 1st. Stockholders of record on Friday, February 16th were issued a $0.65 dividend. This is an increase from Black Hills’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.63. This represents a $2.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 5.03%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, February 15th. Black Hills’s dividend payout ratio is 66.33%.

About Black Hills

Black Hills Corporation, through its subsidiaries, operates as an electric and natural gas utility company in the United States. The company operates in two segments: Electric Utilities and Gas Utilities. The Electric Utilities segment generates, transmits, and distributes electricity to approximately 222,000 electric utility customers in Colorado, Montana, South Dakota, and Wyoming; and owns and operates 1,394 megawatts of generation capacity and 9,106 miles of electric transmission and distribution lines.