Brookfield Infrastructure Partners L.P. (NYSE:BIP) to Issue $0.41 Quarterly Dividend

Brookfield Infrastructure Partners L.P. (NYSE:BIP) (TSE:BIP.UN) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, August 1st, Zacks reports. Shareholders of record on Friday, August 30th will be paid a dividend of 0.405 per share by the utilities provider on Friday, September 27th. This represents a $1.62 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.98%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, August 30th.

Brookfield Infrastructure Partners has increased its dividend payment by an average of 4.8% annually over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 17 consecutive years. Brookfield Infrastructure Partners has a payout ratio of 170.5% indicating that the company cannot currently cover its dividend with earnings alone and is relying on its balance sheet to cover its dividend payments. Analysts expect Brookfield Infrastructure Partners to earn $3.51 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.62 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 46.2%.

Brookfield Infrastructure Partners Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:BIP opened at $32.52 on Thursday. Brookfield Infrastructure Partners has a 52-week low of $21.03 and a 52-week high of $33.23. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $30.16 and a 200 day simple moving average of $29.48. The company has a market capitalization of $15.09 billion, a P/E ratio of 104.90 and a beta of 1.03.

Brookfield Infrastructure Partners (NYSE:BIP) (TSE:BIP.UN) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 1st. The utilities provider reported ($0.10) EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.70 by ($0.80). Brookfield Infrastructure Partners had a return on equity of 0.50% and a net margin of 0.82%. The business had revenue of $5.14 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.91 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $0.72 earnings per share. Brookfield Infrastructure Partners’s revenue was up 20.7% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Brookfield Infrastructure Partners will post 3.23 earnings per share for the current year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Cibc World Mkts upgraded shares of Brookfield Infrastructure Partners to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Friday, August 2nd. BMO Capital Markets decreased their price target on shares of Brookfield Infrastructure Partners from $40.00 to $36.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, May 2nd. Finally, StockNews.com cut Brookfield Infrastructure Partners from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 21st. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating, seven have assigned a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Brookfield Infrastructure Partners has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $38.20.

Brookfield Infrastructure Partners Company Profile

Brookfield Infrastructure Partners L.P. owns and operates utilities, transport, midstream, and data businesses in North and South America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific. The company's Utilities segment operates approximately 2,900 km of electricity transmission lines; 4,200 km of natural gas pipelines; 8.1 million electricity and natural gas connections; and 0.6 million long-term contracted sub-metering services.