Kimelman & Baird LLC Has $513,000 Stake in NiSource Inc. (NYSE:NI)

Kimelman & Baird LLC lowered its holdings in shares of NiSource Inc. (NYSE:NI) by 17.7% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 13,950 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after selling 3,000 shares during the quarter. Kimelman & Baird LLC’s holdings in NiSource were worth $513,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of NI. Smartleaf Asset Management LLC raised its position in NiSource by 110.9% in the 4th quarter. Smartleaf Asset Management LLC now owns 2,273 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $83,000 after buying an additional 1,195 shares during the last quarter. ING Groep NV acquired a new stake in NiSource in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $748,000. Thomasville National Bank raised its position in NiSource by 3.0% in the 4th quarter. Thomasville National Bank now owns 567,196 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $20,850,000 after buying an additional 16,364 shares during the last quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. grew its stake in NiSource by 21.7% in the fourth quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 2,712,724 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $99,720,000 after purchasing an additional 483,491 shares in the last quarter. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted its stake in shares of NiSource by 88.4% during the 3rd quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 14,902,538 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $516,373,000 after acquiring an additional 6,991,608 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 91.64% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other NiSource news, CAO Gunnar Gode sold 5,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $39.92, for a total value of $219,560.00. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 24,758 shares in the company, valued at approximately $988,339.36. The trade was a 18.18 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. 0.13% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Separately, Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price target on NiSource from $39.00 to $43.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, February 13th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a buy rating, According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus target price of $38.13.

NiSource Price Performance

NiSource stock opened at $39.48 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.13, a quick ratio of 0.41 and a current ratio of 0.51. NiSource Inc. has a 52 week low of $26.25 and a 52 week high of $41.44. The stock has a market capitalization of $18.56 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.37, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.56 and a beta of 0.50. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $38.35 and a 200-day moving average of $36.45.

NiSource (NYSE:NI) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 12th. The utilities provider reported $0.49 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.54 by ($0.05). NiSource had a return on equity of 7.87% and a net margin of 13.94%. During the same period last year, the firm posted $0.53 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts expect that NiSource Inc. will post 1.91 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

NiSource Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, February 20th. Investors of record on Monday, February 3rd were given a dividend of $0.28 per share. The ex-dividend date was Monday, February 3rd. This represents a $1.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.84%. This is a positive change from NiSource’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.27. NiSource’s payout ratio is currently 69.14%.

About NiSource

NiSource Inc, an energy holding company, operates as a regulated natural gas and electric utility company in the United States. It operates in two segments, Gas Distribution Operations and Electric Operations. The company distributes natural gas to approximately 3.3 million customers through approximately 55,000 miles of distribution main pipeline and the associated individual customer service lines; and 1,000 miles of transmission main pipeline in northern Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kentucky, and Maryland.