Guardian Partners Inc. Purchases New Stake in TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU)

Guardian Partners Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor purchased 886,811 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock, valued at approximately $12,325,000. TELUS comprises 1.3% of Guardian Partners Inc.’s holdings, making the stock its 24th biggest holding. Guardian Partners Inc. owned approximately 0.06% of TELUS as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in TU. Natixis Advisors LLC raised its holdings in TELUS by 43.4% during the 3rd quarter. Natixis Advisors LLC now owns 101,590 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $1,705,000 after buying an additional 30,769 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. raised its holdings in TELUS by 21.1% during the 3rd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 1,515,242 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $25,447,000 after buying an additional 264,055 shares during the last quarter. Citigroup Inc. raised its holdings in TELUS by 15.4% during the 3rd quarter. Citigroup Inc. now owns 390,486 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $6,558,000 after buying an additional 52,105 shares during the last quarter. Cerity Partners LLC raised its holdings in TELUS by 7.5% during the 3rd quarter. Cerity Partners LLC now owns 42,341 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $710,000 after buying an additional 2,964 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Mirabella Financial Services LLP bought a new stake in TELUS during the 3rd quarter valued at $4,521,000. 49.40% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research analysts have issued reports on the stock. Cormark downgraded shares of TELUS from a “moderate buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 4th. Bank of America downgraded shares of TELUS from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday. StockNews.com raised shares of TELUS from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, February 10th. Morgan Stanley assumed coverage on shares of TELUS in a research report on Monday, December 16th. They set an “equal weight” rating on the stock. Finally, National Bank Financial downgraded shares of TELUS from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Friday, December 13th. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, TELUS currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $26.00.

TELUS Stock Down 4.9 %

NYSE:TU opened at $13.94 on Friday. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $14.84 and its 200-day moving average price is $15.30. The company has a market capitalization of $21.10 billion, a PE ratio of 28.44, a P/E/G ratio of 5.18 and a beta of 0.72. 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 released its earnings results on Thursday, February 13th. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.18 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.16 by $0.02. The firm had revenue of $3.85 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.64 billion. TELUS had a net margin of 4.85% and a return on equity of 9.07%. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $0.10 EPS. On average, equities analysts predict that TELUS Co. will post 0.71 EPS for the current fiscal year.

TELUS Cuts Dividend

The firm also recently announced 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. This represents a $1.13 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 8.12%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, March 11th. TELUS’s dividend payout ratio is presently 226.53%.

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.