Legal & General Group Plc Takes $190,000 Position in TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU)

Legal & General Group Plc purchased a new position in shares of TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm purchased 13,990 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock, valued at approximately $190,000.

Other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in shares of TELUS by 3.6% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 25,801,407 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $349,841,000 after buying an additional 903,921 shares in the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. boosted its position in shares of TELUS by 3.1% during the 4th quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 10,993,662 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $149,074,000 after purchasing an additional 326,531 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of TELUS during the 4th quarter worth $70,212,000. Scheer Rowlett & Associates Investment Management Ltd. increased its holdings in shares of TELUS by 5.2% in the 4th quarter. Scheer Rowlett & Associates Investment Management Ltd. now owns 3,403,521 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $46,088,000 after purchasing an additional 169,577 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of TELUS by 29.8% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 3,032,404 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $42,389,000 after purchasing an additional 696,744 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 49.40% of the company’s stock.

TELUS Trading Down 0.9 %

Shares of TELUS stock opened at $15.24 on Friday. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $14.84 and a 200 day moving average price of $14.88. The company has a market capitalization of $23.07 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.09, a P/E/G ratio of 5.18 and a beta of 0.70. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.52, a current ratio of 0.68 and a quick ratio of 0.61. TELUS Co. has a 1 year low of $13.24 and a 1 year high of $17.27.

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 13th. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.18 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.16 by $0.02. TELUS had a return on equity of 9.07% and a net margin of 4.85%. The business had revenue of $3.85 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.64 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $0.10 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts anticipate that TELUS Co. will post 0.71 EPS for the current fiscal year.

TELUS Cuts Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, April 1st. Investors of record on Tuesday, March 11th were paid a dividend of $0.2829 per share. This represents a $1.13 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 7.43%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, March 11th. TELUS’s payout ratio is 226.53%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have issued reports on TU. StockNews.com raised shares of TELUS from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Monday, February 10th. Bank of America downgraded TELUS from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, March 21st. Finally, Cormark downgraded TELUS from a “moderate buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 4th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Hold”.

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.