Natixis Advisors LLC Sells 60,644 Shares of TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU)

Natixis Advisors LLC lowered its stake in shares of TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) by 59.7% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 40,946 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock after selling 60,644 shares during the period. Natixis Advisors LLC’s holdings in TELUS were worth $555,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other large investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Aviso Financial Inc. raised its position in TELUS by 2.1% during the fourth quarter. Aviso Financial Inc. now owns 336,980 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $4,568,000 after acquiring an additional 7,073 shares in the last quarter. Amundi increased its stake in shares of TELUS by 13.3% during the 4th quarter. Amundi now owns 1,396,362 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $19,409,000 after purchasing an additional 163,984 shares during the last quarter. Scheer Rowlett & Associates Investment Management Ltd. raised 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 during the period. Raymond James Financial Inc. acquired a new stake in TELUS in the 4th quarter valued at about $2,085,000. Finally, Nicola Wealth Management LTD. grew its holdings in TELUS by 3.0% during the fourth quarter. Nicola Wealth Management LTD. now owns 1,093,119 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $14,823,000 after purchasing an additional 32,300 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 49.40% of the company’s stock.

TELUS Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE TU opened at $14.29 on Friday. 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 cap of $21.63 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.15, a P/E/G ratio of 5.18 and a beta of 0.72. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $14.86 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $15.23. TELUS Co. has a one year low of $13.24 and a one year high of $17.27.

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 13th. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.18 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.16 by $0.02. TELUS had a net margin of 4.85% and a return on equity of 9.07%. 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 company posted $0.10 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts forecast that TELUS Co. will post 0.71 EPS for the current year.

TELUS Cuts Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, April 1st. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, March 11th will be given a $0.2829 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, March 11th. This represents a $1.13 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 7.92%. TELUS’s payout ratio is 226.53%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

TU has been the topic of several research analyst reports. StockNews.com upgraded TELUS from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, February 10th. Cormark cut TELUS from a “moderate buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 4th. Morgan Stanley initiated coverage on shares of TELUS in a research report on Monday, December 16th. They set an “equal weight” rating for the company. National Bank Financial lowered shares of TELUS from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Friday, December 13th. Finally, Bank of America downgraded shares of TELUS from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, March 21st. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold”.

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.