Fortis aims to double its size in five years

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FORTIS INC. $39 (Toronto symbol FTS; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Utilities sector; Shares outstanding: 276.3 million; Market cap: $10.8 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.5; Dividend yield 3.5%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.fortis.ca) is the main electricity supplier in Newfoundland and P.E.I. It also distributes natural gas in B.C. and operates power plants in other parts of Canada, the U.S. and the Caribbean. Fortis plans to spend $9.0 billion to expand its operations over the next five years. That’s equal to 83% of its current market cap. Regulated utilities account for 93% of Fortis’s assets, so regulators will let it recover most of these outlays through rate increases. Fortis is also looking at selling or spinning off its properties division, which consists of commercial real estate and 23 hotels. The company expects to make a final decision by June 2015. These moves should increase Fortis’s earnings by 9.9% in 2015, to $1.99 a share from $1.81 in 2014. The stock trades at a..