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Reasons to Invest in Portland General Electric (POR) Now

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Portland General Electric Company (POR - Free Report) is benefiting from delivering safe, clean and reliable energy to its customers. Also, steady capital investments are strengthening its existing infrastructure.

Let’s focus on the factors that make this currently Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) stock a strong pick at the moment. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Growth Projections

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2021 and 2022 earnings per share is pegged at $2.67 and $2.79, respectively. The bottom-line estimates mark a respective increase of 55.23% and 4.68% year over year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2021 and 2022 revenues is pegged at $2.20 billion and $2.25 billion each. The top-line estimates mark an increase of 2.66% and 2.05%, respectively, on a year-over-year basis.

Surprise History & Long-Term Earnings Growth

Portland General Electric’s trailing four-quarter earnings surprise is 107%, on average.

Its long-term (three to five years) earnings growth rate is currently projected at 13.36%.

Regular Investments & Emission Reduction

Portland General Electric makes continuous investments in enhancing and maintaining the existing infrastructure for providing reliable services to its customer base. After investing $774 million in 2020, the company plans to pump $2,855 million of capital between 2021 and 2025. These planned expenditures were directed toward upgrades and replacement of weathered generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure. Moreover, Portland General Electric’s objective is to build a smarter and resilient grid, which will assist it in providing sustainable and trustworthy services to its customers.

Further, the utility via its regular investment is planning to lower greenhouse gas emissions. It targets to achieve 80% greenhouse gas emission reduction from its operation in 2030 from the 2010 levels and also aims to realize net-zero emission from its electricity generation by 2040. In sync with this, in 2020, the utility closed Boardman, its last coal-fired power generating plant in Oregon and inaugurated Wheatridge Renewable Energy Facility, one of the first large-scale energy facilities in the United States to combine wind, solar and battery storage.

Debt-to-Capital Ratio

The company’s total debt-to-total capital ratio is 55.02 compared with its industry average of 56.51, indicating that it is managing the business far more efficiently than its peers in the same industry. Its times interest earned ratio at the end of fourth-quarter 2020 was 2.14. Such a strong ratio indicates that the company will be able to meet its debt obligations in the near future without any difficulty.

Dividend Yield

On the back of its steady performance, the company could consistently pay out dividends to its shareholders. In addition, its board of directors has approved annual dividend hikes over the past 10 consecutive years. The current annual dividend of the company is $1.63 per share, up from $1.05 in 2011. Moreover, the utility targets a payout ratio of 60-70% in the longterm.

Presently, it has a dividend yield of 3.43% compared with the industry’s 3.37%.

Price Performance

In the past three months, the stock has gained 12.7%, outperforming the industry’s rally of 0.1%.

Other Utilities to Buy

A few other top-ranked utilities are Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEP - Free Report) , National Grid Transco, PLC (NGG - Free Report) and MDU Resources Group, Inc. (MDU - Free Report) , all carrying the same Zacks Rank as Portland General Electric at present.

Korea Electric Power, National Grid Transco and MDU Resources have a long-term (three-five years) earnings growth rate of 5%, 2.73% and 5%, respectively.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2021 earnings of both Korea Electric Power and MDU Resourceshas moved 5.1% north in the past 60 days. Also, the same for National Grid Transco’s fiscal 2021 earnings has moved 4.1% north in the past 60 days.

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