Company Overview
NiSource Inc. operates as an energy holding company that functions as a regulated natural gas and electric utility provider across the United States, serving residential, commercial, and industrial customers through its Columbia and NIPSCO operational segments. Within the broader financial landscape, the company is classified within the Utilities sector and specifically the Utilities - Regulated Gas industry, a classification that signifies earnings stability derived from government-regulated rates rather than pure market competition. The entity demonstrates significant scale with a market capitalization of $22.00B and an annual revenue of $6.64B, supported by a workforce of 7,668 employees. These valuation and revenue figures indicate that NiSource maintains a substantial position in the regulated utility market, reflecting a mature business model with established infrastructure assets rather than a high-growth technology profile.
Financial Health
The company reported revenue of $6.64B over the trailing twelve months, generating net income of $926.90M and EBITDA of $2.89B, which highlights a significant gap between top-line revenue and bottom-line profit that reveals a substantial cost structure including operating expenses, depreciation, and interest obligations. This gap results in a profit margin of 14.0%, while the gross margin stands at 50.6% and the operating margin at 27.0%, indicating that the company retains more than half of its revenue as gross profit before overheads but faces significant operational costs that consume a large portion of those gross profits. However, the free cash flow stands at -$1,115,600,000, which indicates a period of negative cash generation that limits immediate financial flexibility and suggests capital expenditures or regulatory timing issues are currently consuming available cash. On the balance sheet, total cash holdings of $110.10M are vastly outweighed by total debt of $16.24B, creating a debt-to-equity ratio of 139.28 that characterizes a highly leveraged financial position rather than a conservative one. This leverage is further evidenced by a current ratio of 0.69, which indicates that the company's current assets are insufficient to cover its current liabilities without relying on external financing or asset sales. Additionally, the return on equity is 9.1% and the return on assets is 3.4%, metrics that reveal moderate management effectiveness in generating returns relative to the capital invested and the total asset base, respectively.
Valuation Assessment
Valuation metrics for the stock show a trailing P/E ratio of 23.57 and a forward P/E of 20.72, where the lower forward multiple implies that the market expects earnings to grow or that current earnings are inflated relative to future expectations. The price-to-book ratio is 2.33, suggesting that the market values the company at a premium of approximately 133% over its book value, likely reflecting the intangible value of its regulated franchise and customer base. Alternative valuation measures include a price-to-sales ratio of 3.31 and an EV/EBITDA of 13.97, which together suggest the company is trading at a valuation consistent with other regulated utility peers despite the high debt load. The stock has traded between a 52-week high of $47.96 and a 52-week low of $35.64, and without the current price explicitly listed in the source data, the valuation range establishes the volatility boundaries within which the stock has operated over the past year. The beta is 0.62, indicating that the stock price exhibits lower volatility relative to the broader market, typically moving with less intensity than the S&P 500 during periods of market fluctuation.
Growth & Income
Revenue growth for the year-over-year period is 19.8%, while earnings growth is recorded at 11.1%, indicating that earnings are growing at a slower pace than revenue, which implies that cost increases or margin compression are offsetting some of the top-line expansion. As a utility company, NiSource pays a dividend yield of 2.6% with a payout ratio of 57.4%, and this payout ratio is generally considered sustainable given that it falls below the typical 60% to 70% threshold for regulated utilities, though the negative free cash flow presents a headwind for maintaining this payout without debt service or asset monetization. The overall growth and income profile presents a mixed picture where strong revenue expansion and a modest dividend yield are balanced against significant leverage and negative cash flow generation.