American Century Companies Inc. Buys 4,074,395 Shares of TransAlta Co. (NYSE:TAC)

American Century Companies Inc. lifted its position in TransAlta Co. (NYSE:TAC) (TSE:TA) by 512.0% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 4,870,226 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after buying an additional 4,074,395 shares during the period. American Century Companies Inc.’s holdings in TransAlta were worth $68,880,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. Tobam bought a new stake in TransAlta during the 4th quarter valued at $46,000. Quantbot Technologies LP purchased a new stake in shares of TransAlta during the third quarter valued at $61,000. Ballentine Partners LLC acquired a new position in shares of TransAlta in the fourth quarter valued at about $145,000. Private Advisor Group LLC acquired a new position in TransAlta in the 4th quarter worth approximately $150,000. Finally, Sage Investment Counsel LLC acquired a new stake in shares of TransAlta in the fourth quarter worth $156,000. Institutional investors own 59.00% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

TAC has been the subject of several recent research reports. Scotiabank cut TransAlta from a “sector outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 23rd. StockNews.com cut shares of TransAlta from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, February 21st. Cibc World Mkts raised shares of TransAlta from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, February 18th. Finally, CIBC raised shares of TransAlta from a “neutral” rating to an “outperformer” rating and cut their price objective for the company from $23.00 to $19.50 in a report on Tuesday, February 18th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $19.50.

TransAlta Stock Performance

Shares of TAC stock opened at $9.83 on Wednesday. The company has a current ratio of 0.74, a quick ratio of 0.67 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.94. TransAlta Co. has a 12-month low of $5.94 and a 12-month high of $14.64. The business’s 50 day moving average is $10.86 and its two-hundred day moving average is $11.19. The company has a market capitalization of $2.93 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.98 and a beta of 0.89.

TransAlta (NYSE:TAC) (TSE:TA) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, February 20th. The utilities provider reported ($0.16) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.12 by ($0.28). The business had revenue of $484.60 million for the quarter. TransAlta had a net margin of 6.38% and a return on equity of 18.47%. Analysts expect that TransAlta Co. will post 0.41 EPS for the current fiscal year.

TransAlta Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, July 1st. Stockholders of record on Sunday, June 1st will be paid a dividend of $0.0458 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, May 30th. This represents a $0.18 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.86%. This is a boost from TransAlta’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.04. TransAlta’s payout ratio is currently 43.90%.

TransAlta Profile

TransAlta Corporation engages in the development, production, and sale of electric energy. It operates through Hydro, Wind and Solar, Gas, Energy Transition, and Energy Marketing segments. The Hydro segment holds interest of approximately 922 megawatts (MW) of owned hydroelectric generating capacity located in Alberta, British Columbia, and Ontario.