Nicola Wealth Management LTD. Acquires 279,000 Shares of TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU)

Nicola Wealth Management LTD. lifted its holdings in TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) by 35.7% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 1,060,819 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock after buying an additional 279,000 shares during the period. TELUS comprises 1.6% of Nicola Wealth Management LTD.’s holdings, making the stock its 26th largest holding. Nicola Wealth Management LTD.’s holdings in TELUS were worth $17,801,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board grew its holdings in TELUS by 11.2% during the 1st quarter. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board now owns 1,252,092 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $20,050,000 after purchasing an additional 126,488 shares during the last quarter. Toronto Dominion Bank increased its position in shares of TELUS by 5.4% during the second quarter. Toronto Dominion Bank now owns 12,472,610 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $188,835,000 after acquiring an additional 636,845 shares during the period. Cumberland Partners Ltd increased its position in shares of TELUS by 130.4% during the first quarter. Cumberland Partners Ltd now owns 56,840 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $910,000 after acquiring an additional 32,170 shares during the period. Sanctuary Advisors LLC purchased a new position in shares of TELUS during the second quarter worth approximately $680,000. Finally, Seven Eight Capital LP purchased a new position in shares of TELUS during the first quarter worth approximately $938,000. 49.40% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms have recently issued reports on TU. StockNews.com upgraded shares of TELUS from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, September 6th. Canaccord Genuity Group downgraded shares of TELUS from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 6th. Finally, Scotiabank upgraded shares of TELUS from a “sector perform” rating to a “sector outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, October 28th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $26.00.

TELUS Stock Down 0.8 %

TU traded down $0.13 during trading on Thursday, hitting $15.45. The stock had a trading volume of 566,663 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,282,194. The company has a market capitalization of $23.05 billion, a PE ratio of 33.14, a PEG ratio of 2.12 and a beta of 0.75. TELUS Co. has a twelve month low of $14.63 and a twelve month high of $19.14. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.50, a quick ratio of 0.61 and a current ratio of 0.69. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $16.29 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $16.11.

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) last announced its earnings results on Friday, November 8th. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.28 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.17 by $0.11. The company had revenue of $5.10 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.69 billion. TELUS had a net margin of 4.56% and a return on equity of 8.80%. TELUS’s revenue was up 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm earned $0.19 earnings per share. On average, research analysts predict that TELUS Co. will post 0.78 earnings per share for the current year.

TELUS Increases Dividend

The company 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 $0.297 dividend. This represents a $1.19 annualized dividend and a yield of 7.69%. This is an increase from TELUS’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.28. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, December 11th. TELUS’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 244.69%.

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.