Montrusco Bolton Investments Inc. Increases Position in TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU)

Montrusco Bolton Investments Inc. boosted its stake in shares of TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) by 27.4% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 1,091,751 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 234,652 shares during the quarter. Montrusco Bolton Investments Inc. owned about 0.07% of TELUS worth $14,795,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. AEGON ASSET MANAGEMENT UK Plc lifted its holdings in shares of TELUS by 6.9% during the 4th quarter. AEGON ASSET MANAGEMENT UK Plc now owns 1,017,200 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $13,785,000 after purchasing an additional 65,940 shares during the last quarter. Cardinal Capital Management Inc. raised its stake in TELUS by 7.6% in the fourth quarter. Cardinal Capital Management Inc. now owns 375,091 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $5,074,000 after buying an additional 26,655 shares during the last quarter. Avior Wealth Management LLC boosted its holdings in TELUS by 1,756.0% in the fourth quarter. Avior Wealth Management LLC now owns 4,807 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $65,000 after acquiring an additional 4,548 shares in the last quarter. Crossmark Global Holdings Inc. grew its stake in shares of TELUS by 3.4% during the fourth quarter. Crossmark Global Holdings Inc. now owns 87,419 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $1,185,000 after acquiring an additional 2,840 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Nexus Investment Management ULC increased its holdings in shares of TELUS by 1.8% during the fourth quarter. Nexus Investment Management ULC now owns 2,225,265 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $30,103,000 after acquiring an additional 38,450 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 49.40% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research analysts have issued reports on TU shares. Morgan Stanley began coverage on shares of TELUS in a research note on Monday, December 16th. They set an “equal weight” rating on the stock. Scotiabank upgraded TELUS from a “sector perform” rating to a “sector outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, October 28th. StockNews.com cut TELUS from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 21st. Finally, National Bank Financial lowered TELUS from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Friday, December 13th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, TELUS presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $26.00.

TELUS Stock Up 0.8 %

TELUS stock opened at $14.68 on Wednesday. TELUS Co. has a 52 week low of $13.24 and a 52 week high of $18.35. The firm has a market cap of $22.01 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.22, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.69 and a beta of 0.74. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $14.43 and its 200 day moving average price is $15.55. The company has a quick ratio of 0.63, a current ratio of 0.69 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.50.

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) last posted 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 firm had revenue of $5.10 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.69 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $0.19 EPS. The business’s revenue was up 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that TELUS Co. will post 0.72 earnings per share for the current year.

TELUS Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, January 2nd. Investors of record on Wednesday, December 11th were paid a $0.297 dividend. This represents a $1.19 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 8.10%. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, December 11th. This is a positive change from TELUS’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.28. TELUS’s payout ratio is currently 242.56%.

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.