Munger Mode rating: 2 out of 5 — Sell. Our own rating from the research report below, on business quality first: moat durability and management, with price separating the top three.
We have owned utilities for decades through Berkshire Hathaway Energy, so let us say up front: we like utilities as a home for enormous sums of capital at predictable returns. That is a different thing entirely from liking them as common stock investments at 21.6 times forward earnings. Alliant Energy is a competently managed, two-state regulated utility with a genuine legal monopoly, a real data-center growth story, and 23 consecutive years of dividend increases. It is also a business whose returns are capped by statute at roughly 9.8-10.5% on equity, which consumes every dollar of operating cash flow and then some, which must sell roughly $2.4 billion of new stock over the next four years to fund its capital plan, and which carries $12 billion of debt against $7.5 billion of equity.
Recent filings analysed: 8-K (2026-07-31), 10-Q (2026-07-31), 8-K (2026-05-21), 8-K (2026-05-01).
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