Russell Investments Group Ltd. Acquires 97,795 Shares of TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU)

Russell Investments Group Ltd. raised its holdings in TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) by 21.9% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 544,463 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock after buying an additional 97,795 shares during the quarter. Russell Investments Group Ltd.’s holdings in TELUS were worth $9,736,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in TU. Quadrature Capital Ltd bought a new stake in TELUS during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $28,436,000. Scotia Capital Inc. boosted its position in shares of TELUS by 10.2% during the third quarter. Scotia Capital Inc. now owns 16,675,010 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $272,179,000 after purchasing an additional 1,542,942 shares in the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. grew its stake in TELUS by 14.1% in the third quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 11,374,743 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $185,863,000 after purchasing an additional 1,409,188 shares during the period. Toronto Dominion Bank raised its holdings in TELUS by 7.6% in the third quarter. Toronto Dominion Bank now owns 15,971,196 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $260,969,000 after purchasing an additional 1,126,322 shares in the last quarter. Finally, AEGON ASSET MANAGEMENT UK Plc purchased a new position in TELUS during the fourth quarter valued at $19,989,000. 49.40% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

TELUS Trading Up 0.5 %

Shares of NYSE TU opened at $16.46 on Tuesday. The company has a market cap of $24.29 billion, a PE ratio of 38.27, a P/E/G ratio of 2.00 and a beta of 0.71. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.35, a quick ratio of 0.62 and a current ratio of 0.67. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $16.42 and its 200-day moving average price is $17.25. TELUS Co. has a 52-week low of $15.35 and a 52-week high of $20.99.

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) last issued its earnings results on Friday, February 9th. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.18 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.17 by $0.01. The business had revenue of $5.20 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $5.24 billion. TELUS had a return on equity of 7.81% and a net margin of 4.18%. The company’s revenue was up 2.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business posted $0.17 EPS. On average, equities research analysts expect that TELUS Co. will post 0.76 EPS for the current fiscal year.

TELUS Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, April 1st. Investors of record on Monday, March 11th were issued a $0.2793 dividend. This represents a $1.12 annualized dividend and a yield of 6.79%. This is an increase from TELUS’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.27. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, March 8th. TELUS’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 258.14%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

TU has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. BMO Capital Markets reduced their target price on shares of TELUS from $27.00 to $26.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, February 12th. Scotiabank reissued a “sector perform” rating and issued a $26.00 price target (down from $28.00) on shares of TELUS in a research report on Monday, March 25th. Finally, StockNews.com lowered TELUS from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 26th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $27.72.

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.