Updating Fortis Inc. and Pengrowth Energy Inc.

Article Excerpt

FORTIS INC. $43 (www.fortisinc.com) operates power plants in Canada, the U.S. and the Caribbean. It’s now buying ITC Holdings Corp. (New York symbol ITC) for $11.3 billion U.S. This firm owns 25,100 kilometres of high-voltage power lines in the U.S. Midwest. Fortis expects to complete the acquisition by the end of 2016. If you exclude costs related to this purchase, the company earned $131 million in the second quarter of 2016. That’s up 6.5% from $123 million a year earlier. Per-share earnings improved 4.6%, to $0.46 from $0.44, on more shares outstanding. Buy. PENGROWTH ENERGY INC. $1.93 (www.pengrowth.com) produced 56,735 barrels a day (62% oil and liquids, 38% natural gas) in the second quarter of 2016. That’s down 23.4% from 74,113 barrels a year earlier. The decline is because the company continues to sell less-important properties to pay down its debt. That now stands at $1.5 billion (or 1.5 times its market cap), down 12.3% since the end of 2015…