Spire Inc. SR announced that its board of directors has approved a year-over-year increase in the quarterly dividend rate by 5.1% from 78.5 cents to 82.5 cents. The revised annual dividend will be $3.30 per share. The new quarterly dividend will be payable on Jan. 5, 2026, to its shareholders of record at the close of business on Dec.11, 2025.
Spire has raised its dividend five times in the last five years. Its annualized dividend growth rate (five years) is currently pegged at 4.67%. More details relating to SR’s dividend are available here.
Spire has been distributing dividends to its shareholders each quarter since 1946. The company’s dividend hike is in line with its target payout ratio of 55-65%. Spire’s current dividend yield of 3.47% is better than the industry’s average of 2.72%.
Can Spire Sustain Dividend Hikes in the Future?
Spire has consistently paid dividends since 1946 and has increased its annual dividend rate for the past 23 years, but it does not guarantee payment of dividends in the future. Let us delve deep to find the factors that assisted the company in paying dividends in the past years and can allow it to pay the same over the long term.
Spire is benefiting from steady investments in upgrading and maintaining its existing infrastructure, along with efforts to expand operations. For fiscal 2025, capital spending is now projected at $875 million, up from the earlier estimate of $840 million. The updated outlook allocates about $610 million to Spire Missouri, $160 million to Spire Alabama, Spire Gulf and Spire Mississippi combined, and $105 million to Midstream. Over the next decade, Spire plans to invest approximately $7.4 billion, which is expected to support a 7-8% annual rate-base growth.
The company is also seeing an increase in its natural gas customer base, which is contributing to higher revenues. Spire’s customer base is expanding organically and through strategic acquisitions. The company has entered into an agreement to acquire Piedmont Natural Gas’ Tennessee local distribution company business. This acquisition is expected to close in first-quarter 2026 and add more than 200,000 customers to Spire's existing customer base.
Spire is also investing in smart meters to improve customers’ experience. The company has installed more than 350,000 advanced meters in fiscal 2024, bringing the total number of customers benefiting from this technology to 850,000.
Such positive initiatives and favorable regulatory environment in its service territories will allow the company to report strong results and distribute regular dividends to customers.
Utilities Continue to Reward Shareholders
Domestic-focused, rate-regulated gas distribution utilities are stable performers, which allows them to reward shareholders through dividend hikes and share buybacks. Other gas distribution utilities, such as Atmos Energy ATO, National Fuel Gas Company NFG and UGI Corporation UGI, have raised dividend rates during 2025.
The current dividend yields of ATO, NFG and UGI are 1.96%, 2.69% and 4.34%, respectively, which are higher than the S&P 500 composite’s yield of 1.51%.
Spire’s Price Movement
In the past year, SR’s shares have risen 32.9% compared with its industry’s 10.3% growth.
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SR’s Zacks Rank
Spire currently has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
