Diversified energy utility DPL Inc. (DPL) increased the quarterly dividend on its common stock from $0.285 to $0.3025 per common share. This action increases the annualized dividend from $1.14 to $1.21. This is the fifth consecutive year the company has raised its dividend.

DPL has $93 million in cash and cash equivalents at the end of the recent quarter compared to $62.5 million at year-end 2008. The company also has $295 million of unutilized capacity on its revolving lines of credit.

The future also looks promising with the company having received the regulatory approval for the electric security plan (ESP). The ESP has stipulated higher rates till the end of fiscal 2012.  The ESP has increased the bill of an average residential customer with monthly consumption of 750kwh by approximately 1.8% in 2009 and by 2.7% in 2010.  Higher rates have come at an opportune moment for the company, which is planning to invest $475 million in the upgrade of its infrastructure during the period 2009 – 2011.

Apart from this, PUCO has also approved a fuel recovery mechanism from 2010, which will enable DPL to recover its fuel costs, primarily coal.  This is a welcome relief for the company, since its fuel costs rose 35.7% to $84.4 million in the third quarter of 2009 over the year-ago quarter.

Dayton, Ohio-based DPL Inc. sells electricity through its principal subsidiary Dayton Power and Light Company (DP&L).  DPL owns approximately 900MW of natural gas and diesel peaking generation capacity, and 2,800MW of coal-fired generation capacity.  DP&L is an electric utility with more than 500,000 residential, commercial, industrial, and governmental customers in its 6,000 square-mile service area in west-central Ohio.

The other subsidiaries of DPL Inc. are DPL Energy, LLC (DPLE) and DPL Energy Resources, Inc. (DPLER). DPLE operates merchant peaking generation facilities and DPLER markets wholesale power generated by the DPL power plants. In fiscal 2009, the company was nominated among the 100 most trustworthy companies based on accounting and governance practices by Forbes.

Overall, DPL expects earnings to range between $2.00 and $2.30 per share in fiscal 2009, in line with our expectations of $2.14.

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