Avista Corp. said Friday it was raising its quarterly dividend to 37.25 cents a share, which is up 4.2% from 35.75 a share. The electricity and natural gas generation and distribution company said the new dividend will be payable March 15 to shareholders for record on Feb. 23. At Thursday’s stock closing price of $50.08, the new annual dividend rate of $1.49 a share implies a dividend yield of 2.98%, compared with the implied dividend yields of 2.90% for the SPDR Energy Select Sector ETF and 1.79% for the S&P 500 . Avista shares, which were still inactive in premarket trade, have lost 3.5% over the past three months, while the energy ETF has climbed 10.4% and the S&P 500 has gained 9.4%.
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