Company Update (NYSE:DUK): Duke Energy announces pricing of common stock offering in connection with its pending acquisition of Piedmont Natural Gas

[PR Newswire] – CHARLOTTE, N.C., March 2, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — Duke Energy Corporation (DUK) (“Duke”) announced today the pricing of a public offering of approximately 9.25 million shares of its common stock at $72.00 per share in connection with the forward sale agreement described below. Barclays, BofA Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, J.P. Morgan and Wells Fargo Securities are acting as joint book-running managers of the offering. The expected net proceeds from the offering are to be used to finance a portion of the costs of Duke’s pending acquisition of Piedmont Natural Gas Company, Inc. (“Piedmont”). Read more on this. Duke Energy Corporation (DUK) , valued at $50.61B, began trading this morning at $73.39. Looking at the equity, the company’s one day range is $72.48 to $73.78 with a one year range of $65.50 to $80.10. DUK shares are currently priced at 15.88x this year’s forecasted earnings, which makes them relatively expensive compared to the industry’s 15.19x earnings multiple for the same period. And for dividend hunters, the company pays shareholders $3.30 per share annually in dividends, yielding 4.46%. In a review of the consensus earnings estimate this quarter, 6 sell-side analysts are looking at $1.21 per share, which would be $0.03 worse than the year-ago quarter and a $0.05 sequential increase. The full-year EPS estimate is $4.62 which would be a $0.08 better than last year’s full-year earnings. The quarterly earnings estimate is based on a consensus revenue forecast of the current quarter of $6.04 Billion. If realized, that would be a 0.33% decrease over the year-ago quarter. In terms of ratings, JP Morgan downgraded DUK from Overweight to Neutral (Feb 19, 2016). Previously, Wells Fargo downgraded DUK from Outperform to Market Perform. When considering if perhaps the stock is under or overvalued, the average price target is $77.18, which is 5.16% above where the stock opened this morning. See more in (NYSE:DUK) Similar Articles: Company Update (NYSE:DUK): Piedmont Natural Gas Shareholders Approve Acquisition by Duke Energy Stock Update: Duke Energy Corp (NYSE:DUK) – Duke Energy, Piedmont Natural Gas file with North Carolina Utilities Commission for acquisition approval Market Update (NYSE:DUK): Duke Energy designates Yoho to lead Natural Gas Operations upon completion of the Piedmont acquisition