Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio Acquires Shares of 89,838 TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU)

Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio acquired a new stake in shares of TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) during the third quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund acquired 89,838 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock, valued at approximately $1,509,000.

A number of other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. National Bank of Canada FI raised its stake in shares of TELUS by 24.2% in the third quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 26,160,789 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $438,922,000 after acquiring an additional 5,094,269 shares during the last quarter. 1832 Asset Management L.P. raised its stake in shares of TELUS by 6.6% in the second quarter. 1832 Asset Management L.P. now owns 38,193,733 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $578,253,000 after acquiring an additional 2,365,753 shares during the last quarter. Fiera Capital Corp raised its stake in shares of TELUS by 9.9% in the second quarter. Fiera Capital Corp now owns 16,670,713 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $252,468,000 after acquiring an additional 1,501,742 shares during the last quarter. TD Asset Management Inc raised its stake in shares of TELUS by 3.0% in the second quarter. TD Asset Management Inc now owns 41,711,861 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $631,310,000 after acquiring an additional 1,208,720 shares during the last quarter. Finally, FMR LLC raised its stake in shares of TELUS by 192.0% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 1,326,632 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $22,257,000 after acquiring an additional 872,235 shares during the last quarter. 49.40% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

TU has been the topic of several research reports. Morgan Stanley initiated coverage on TELUS in a report on Monday. They set an “equal weight” rating on the stock. Scotiabank raised TELUS from a “sector perform” rating to a “sector outperform” rating in a report on Monday, October 28th. National Bank Financial downgraded TELUS from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a report on Friday, December 13th. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded TELUS from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Thursday, November 21st. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, TELUS has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $26.00.

TELUS Price Performance

Shares of NYSE TU opened at $13.87 on Thursday. TELUS Co. has a fifty-two week low of $13.74 and a fifty-two week high of $18.55. The stock has a market capitalization of $20.81 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.51, a PEG ratio of 2.10 and a beta of 0.73. The business has a 50-day moving average of $15.58 and a 200-day moving average of $15.92. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.50, a current ratio of 0.69 and a quick ratio of 0.63.

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Friday, November 8th. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.28 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping 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 the consensus estimate of $3.69 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $0.19 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that TELUS Co. will post 0.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

TELUS Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, January 2nd. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, December 11th will be paid a dividend of $0.297 per share. This represents a $1.19 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 8.57%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, December 11th. This is a boost from TELUS’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.28. TELUS’s payout ratio is presently 253.19%.

TELUS Company 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.