PPL Corp. continued to occupy the top slot on the list of the 25 most profitable U.S. and Canadian utilities by recurring EBITDA margin during the fourth quarter of 2017.
The diversified company had a recurring EBITDA margin of 54.26% of recurring revenues, down 1.79 percentage points from the same period in 2016. PPL reported lower earnings from ongoing operations that still beat analyst estimates for the fourth quarter of 2017.
"We delivered on our earnings commitments, invested $3.5 billion in infrastructure improvements, provided award-winning customer service, strengthened reliability for our customers and increased our dividend for shareowners," PPL Chairman, President and CEO William Spence said in the company's fourth-quarter and full-year 2017 earnings release.

TransCanada Corp. and NextEra Energy Inc. also kept their spots in the second and third places, respectively. TransCanada saw its recurring EBITDA margin increase to 54.04% from 51.82% in the same period of 2016. NextEra Energy's recurring EBITDA margin rose 2.72 percentage points to 52.27% in the most recent quarter.
National Fuel Gas Co. also retained its fifth position, despite recording the biggest year-over-year percentage point drop among the companies. The company had a recurring EBITDA margin of 47.73% in the 2017 fourth quarter, down from 54.36% in the prior-year period.
Other companies that saw drops in their recurring EBITDA margins were Duke Energy Corp., Algonquin Power & Utilities Corp., Westar Energy Inc., Great Plains Energy Inc., Cleco Corporate Holdings LLC, SCANA Corp., Black Hills Corp., El Paso Electric Co. and Entergy Corp.
Emera Inc. had the highest gain at 8.20 percentage points, resulting in a recurring EBITDA margin of 37.28% of recurring revenues. The Nova Scotia-based electric company reported higher fourth-quarter adjusted net income attributable to common shareholders due to more contributions from its U.S. regulated segments.
