Water Profits Rise on Higher Rates (AWK, WTR)
After the market closed yesterday, American Water Works (NYSE:AWK) reported third quarter EPS of $0.55 on revenues of $672 million. EPS was right on expectations, but revenues fell short by about 12%. The floods in the Midwest reduced water sales…
This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.
After the market closed yesterday, American Water Works (NYSE:AWK) reported third quarter EPS of $0.55 on revenues of $672 million. EPS was right on expectations, but revenues fell short by about 12%. The floods in the Midwest reduced water sales by 4.8% from the same period a year ago, reducing EPS by about 4%.
The company attributed the increase in earnings to "higher revenues inits Regulated Business," which contributed about 60% of net income.American Water’s president and CEO noted that the company continues "tomake progress in our regulatory filings." That’s the nub of the waterbusiness: convincing regulators to make customers pay more.
Aqua America (NYSE:WTR) reported very similar results for the very same reasons, so we’ll skip the details.
Investors weren’t impressed by American Water’s earnings. The stockprice fell more than 3% in after-hours trading. American Water’s shareprice is off about 18% from its 52-week high. Aqua America fared alittle better, rising nearly 2% after hours. But the stock is still offmore than 20% from 52-week highs.
Paul Ausick
November 6, 2008
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.
McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.
His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.
A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.
TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.
McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.
