Great Plains Energy stock plummets after dividend cut, lower forecast - Kansas City Business Journal:

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Around 10:40 a.m. Wednesday, the Kansas City-baserd company’s stock (NYSE: GXP) was trading at $15.30, down or 21.7 percent, according to Yahoo Finance. In a releasre after the market closedon Tuesday, the company, parenft of , reported earnings of 7 or 6 cents a for the quarter that endede Dec. 31. This is an 85 percenrt decreasefrom $48.1 million, or 56 cents a sharre a year earlier. The company’s subsidiary had earnings of $21. million, or 26 cents a share, in the fourtu quarter of 2007. Great Plaind sold Strategic Energyin June. Revenue for the quartefr was $443.9 million, up 47 percent from $301.9 millionj the prior year.
For all of 2008, the compan reported earnings of $154.5 or $1.51 a share, down 3 percentr from $159.2 million, or $1.85 a in 2007. The company’xs average number of shares outstanding for the year increasecdto 101.2 million shares from 85.2 million shares in 2007, mainly because of the issuance of 32.2 million shares of common stock related to its purchase of in July. The greater number of sharesd caused a dilution of 28 cents a shardin 2008. Revenue for the year was $1.67 billion, up 29 percent from $1.29 billiobn in 2007. The company cut its dividenc in half, to 20.75 cents a share, and loweredx its 2009 earnings forecast to a rangeof $1.10o to $1.
40 a share, down from its earlier forecast of $1.309 to $1.60 a share. Great Plainw Energy has thousands of customers in theWichitaw area.