Kinder Morgan Q3 Profit Misses Estimates

(RTTNews) - Kinder Morgan, Inc. (KMI) reported that its third quarter net income before certain items was $348 million compared to $537 million for the same period in 2014. The company said the decrease in net income before certain items was driven by higher DD&A expense and interest expense. Certain items after tax in the third quarter totaled a net loss of $165 million driven largely by a non-cash pre-tax impairment charge related to the Goldsmith field in CO2 segment compared to a net gain of $242 million for the same period last year.

The company announced that its board approved an increase in its quarterly cash dividend to $0.51 ($2.04 annualized) payable on Nov. 13, 2015, to shareholders of record as of the close of business on Nov. 2, 2015. This is up from $0.49 per share ($1.96 annualized) for the second quarter of 2015.

Looking forward, the company said it remains on track to meet full-year dividend target of $2.00 per share with substantial excess cash coverage despite continued challenging conditions in the energy sector. Distributable cash flow per share before certain items was $0.51 compared to $0.42 for the third quarter last year.

Executive Chairman Richard Kinder, said: "We believe an appropriate response to the challenging current equity markets is to identify alternative funding sources that help us meet our goals and have a lower expected long-term cost of capital than our common equity. We have identified alternative sources and have selected one of these to pursue, as appropriate, to meet our equity funding requirements for the balance of 2015 and for the first half of 2016. This would eliminate our need to access the common equity markets through mid-next year."

Net income attributable to KMI was $186 million compared to $329 million, prior year. Earnings Per class P Share was $0.08 compared to $0.32. On average, 17 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to report profit per share of $0.19 for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

Revenues were $3.71 billion compared to $4.29 billion, a year ago. Analysts expected revenue of $3.78 billion for the quarter.