American Water Works Company, Inc. (NYSE:AWK) Raises Dividend to $0.77 Per Share

American Water Works Company, Inc. (NYSE:AWK) announced a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, May 1st, RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, May 14th will be paid a dividend of 0.765 per share by the utilities provider on Monday, June 3rd. This represents a $3.06 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.45%. This is a boost from American Water Works’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.71.

American Water Works has increased its dividend payment by an average of 8.9% annually over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 16 consecutive years. American Water Works has a payout ratio of 49.8% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect American Water Works to earn $5.68 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $2.83 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 49.8%.

American Water Works Trading Up 2.3 %

Shares of AWK opened at $125.12 on Thursday. The company has a current ratio of 0.65, a quick ratio of 0.59 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.20. American Water Works has a 12-month low of $113.34 and a 12-month high of $151.24. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $119.21 and a 200 day moving average price of $124.27. The firm has a market capitalization of $24.38 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.59, a P/E/G ratio of 2.92 and a beta of 0.62.

American Water Works (NYSE:AWK) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, February 15th. The utilities provider reported $0.88 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.84 by $0.04. The company had revenue of $1.03 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.02 billion. American Water Works had a net margin of 22.30% and a return on equity of 9.70%. American Water Works’s revenue was up 10.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $0.81 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts forecast that American Water Works will post 5.24 EPS for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other American Water Works news, EVP Melanie M. Kennedy sold 843 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, March 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $119.59, for a total transaction of $100,814.37. Following the sale, the executive vice president now owns 16,240 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,942,141.60. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. 0.08% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several analysts recently weighed in on AWK shares. StockNews.com cut shares of American Water Works from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 3rd. Evercore ISI cut shares of American Water Works from an “outperform” rating to an “in-line” rating and reduced their target price for the company from $160.00 to $135.00 in a report on Friday, February 16th.

About American Water Works

American Water Works Company, Inc, through its subsidiaries, provides water and wastewater services in the United States. It offers water and wastewater services to approximately 1,700 communities in 14 states serving approximately 3.5 million active customers. The company serves residential customers; commercial customers, including food and beverage providers, commercial property developers and proprietors, and energy suppliers; fire service and private fire customers; industrial customers, such as large-scale manufacturers, mining, and production operations; public authorities comprising government buildings and other public sector facilities, such as schools and universities; and other utilities and community water and wastewater systems.