Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board Cuts Stock Holdings in TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU)

Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board lowered its stake in TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) by 2.9% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 136,418 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock after selling 4,121 shares during the period. Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board’s holdings in TELUS were worth $1,850,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Barclays PLC boosted its stake in shares of TELUS by 38.5% during the third quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 467,148 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $7,839,000 after purchasing an additional 129,934 shares during the period. American Century Companies Inc. boosted its position in TELUS by 4.6% during the 4th quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 119,665 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $1,623,000 after buying an additional 5,286 shares during the period. AEGON ASSET MANAGEMENT UK Plc grew its holdings in TELUS by 6.9% in the 4th quarter. AEGON ASSET MANAGEMENT UK Plc now owns 1,017,200 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $13,785,000 after acquiring an additional 65,940 shares during the last quarter. Centre Asset Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of TELUS in the fourth quarter valued at about $6,946,000. Finally, Nexus Investment Management ULC raised its stake 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 during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 49.40% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several analysts recently issued reports on the company. Cormark cut TELUS from a “moderate buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 4th. Bank of America cut TELUS from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, March 21st. Finally, StockNews.com raised TELUS from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, February 10th. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, TELUS currently has a consensus rating of “Hold”.

TELUS Stock Performance

Shares of TU opened at $14.65 on Wednesday. TELUS Co. has a one year low of $13.24 and a one year high of $17.27. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $14.84 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $14.97. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.52, a current ratio of 0.68 and a quick ratio of 0.61. The firm has a market capitalization of $22.18 billion, a PE ratio of 29.89, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 5.18 and a beta of 0.70.

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) last released its earnings results on Thursday, February 13th. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.18 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.16 by $0.02. The company had revenue of $3.85 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.64 billion. TELUS had a return on equity of 9.07% and a net margin of 4.85%. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $0.10 EPS. On average, analysts anticipate that TELUS Co. will post 0.71 EPS for the current fiscal year.

TELUS Cuts Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, April 1st. Investors of record on Tuesday, March 11th were given a dividend of $0.2829 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, March 11th. This represents a $1.13 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 7.72%. TELUS’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 226.53%.

About TELUS

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.