Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board Buys 86,393 Shares of TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU)

Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board raised its stake in shares of TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) by 159.6% during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 140,539 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 86,393 shares during the period. Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board’s holdings in TELUS were worth $2,360,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. 1832 Asset Management L.P. raised its holdings in shares of TELUS by 6.6% in the second quarter. 1832 Asset Management L.P. now owns 38,193,733 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $578,253,000 after purchasing an additional 2,365,753 shares during the last quarter. Fiera Capital Corp increased its stake in TELUS by 9.9% in the 2nd quarter. Fiera Capital Corp now owns 16,670,713 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $252,468,000 after buying an additional 1,501,742 shares during the last quarter. TD Asset Management Inc lifted its position in shares of TELUS by 3.0% during the 2nd quarter. TD Asset Management Inc now owns 41,711,861 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $631,310,000 after buying an additional 1,208,720 shares in the last quarter. Guardian Capital LP lifted its position in shares of TELUS by 27.8% during the 1st quarter. Guardian Capital LP now owns 5,486,529 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $87,857,000 after buying an additional 1,195,035 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Toronto Dominion Bank boosted its stake in shares of TELUS by 5.4% in the 2nd quarter. Toronto Dominion Bank now owns 12,472,610 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $188,835,000 after buying an additional 636,845 shares during the last quarter. 49.40% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

TELUS Stock Performance

NYSE:TU opened at $15.51 on Wednesday. TELUS Co. has a twelve month low of $14.63 and a twelve month high of $19.14. The company has a quick ratio of 0.63, a current ratio of 0.69 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.50. The stock has a market cap of $23.13 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.99, a PEG ratio of 2.17 and a beta of 0.75. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $16.17 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $16.09.

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) last announced its earnings results on Friday, November 8th. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.28 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.17 by $0.11. TELUS had a net margin of 4.56% and a return on equity of 8.80%. The business had revenue of $5.10 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.69 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $0.19 earnings per share. TELUS’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts predict that TELUS Co. will post 0.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

TELUS Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, January 2nd. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, December 11th will be given a dividend of $0.297 per share. This is a boost from TELUS’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.28. This represents a $1.19 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 7.66%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, December 11th. TELUS’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 253.19%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts have recently commented on the company. StockNews.com upgraded TELUS from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, September 6th. Scotiabank upgraded shares of TELUS from a “sector perform” rating to a “sector outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, October 28th. Finally, Canaccord Genuity Group cut shares of TELUS from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 6th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $26.00.

TELUS Profile

TELUS Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, provides a range of telecommunications and information technology products and services in Canada. It operates through Technology Solutions and Digitally-Led Customer Experiences segments. The Technology Solutions segment offers a range of telecommunications products and services; network services; healthcare services; mobile technologies equipment; data services, such as internet protocol; television; hosting, managed information technology, and cloud-based services; software, data management, and data analytics-driven smart food-chain and consumer goods technologies; home and business security; healthcare software and technology solutions; and voice and other telecommunications services, as well as mobile and fixed voice and data telecommunications services and products.