Topic: How To Invest

Pat: I was wondering what your opinion is on PPL Corporation? Thanks.

Article Excerpt

PPL Corporation, $32.71, symbol PPL on New York (Shares outstanding: 582.9 million; Market cap: $19.1 billion; www.pplweb.com), generates electricity from plants in the northeastern, northwestern and southeastern U.S.; markets energy, primarily in the northeastern and northwestern U.S.; delivers electricity to customers in Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee and the U.K.; and supplies natural gas in Kentucky. The company has about 10 million customers and over 18,000 megawatts of generating capacity. PPL has been shifting its focus toward regulated-power markets, because low natural gas prices have cut the cost of producing electricity and depressed selling prices from unregulated power operations. In 2011, PPL bought two Kentucky utilities and an electricity-distribution business in the U.K. for $14 billion. This doubled the number of PPL’s regulated utility customers. The higher proportion of regulated business has let the company raise its quarterly dividend by 2.1% with the April 2013 payment, to $0.3675 from $0.36. The shares now yield 4.5%. The stock trades at 13.6 times this year’s…