Spire Inc. Affirms Long-term Earnings Growth Target; Raises Dividend 5.3%

(RTTNews) - Spire Inc. (SR) affirmed the company's longer-term net economic earnings per share growth target of 4-7 percent from a base of fiscal 2018 run-rate earnings after removing $0.17 per share of Spire Marketing's performance. The company anticipates capital investment for the 5-year period 2018-2022 to be $2.6 billion, and expects most of that spend to be in its gas utilities.

For fiscal 2019, Spire Inc. expects net economic earnings to be in the range of $3.70-$3.80 per share. Capital expenditures are expected to be $650 million, with investment in gas utilities totaling $475 million and the remainder supporting pipeline and storage businesses.

Fiscal 2018 net economic earnings per share was $3.72, up 4.5 percent from a year ago. The company said 4.5 percent increase in NEE per share includes slightly higher Gas Utility NEE, reflecting certain impacts of Missouri rate cases and tax reform, and much stronger results from Gas Marketing, both of which were impacted by a 4.9 percent increase in diluted shares outstanding.

The board of Spire increased the quarterly common stock dividend to $0.5925 per share, an increase of 5.3 percent. This raises the annualized rate by $0.12 per share to $2.37 per share. The dividend is payable January 3, 2019, to shareholders of record on December 11, 2018.