Northwest & Ethical Investments L.P. Acquires 89,250 Shares of TELUS Corporation $TU

Northwest & Ethical Investments L.P. grew its holdings in shares of TELUS Corporation (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) by 13.8% during the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 735,143 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock after buying an additional 89,250 shares during the quarter. Northwest & Ethical Investments L.P.’s holdings in TELUS were worth $11,783,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in TELUS by 1.5% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 26,185,917 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $375,585,000 after purchasing an additional 384,510 shares during the last quarter. Federation des caisses Desjardins du Quebec raised its stake in shares of TELUS by 9.2% during the 1st quarter. Federation des caisses Desjardins du Quebec now owns 22,899,251 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $328,588,000 after purchasing an additional 1,938,521 shares in the last quarter. Scotia Capital Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of TELUS by 4.7% in the 1st quarter. Scotia Capital Inc. now owns 18,553,552 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $266,146,000 after buying an additional 831,282 shares during the last quarter. Fiera Capital Corp grew its stake in shares of TELUS by 1.2% in the first quarter. Fiera Capital Corp now owns 16,270,907 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $233,606,000 after buying an additional 192,599 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. increased its holdings in TELUS by 196.2% during the first quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 11,836,479 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $169,735,000 after buying an additional 7,840,264 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 49.40% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts have commented on the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reiterated an “underweight” rating and issued a $19.00 price target (down previously from $22.00) on shares of TELUS in a research note on Tuesday, November 18th. National Bank Financial upgraded TELUS from a “sector perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, November 19th. Barclays lowered their price target on TELUS from $15.00 to $14.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, November 10th. Natl Bk Canada upgraded TELUS from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday. Finally, Weiss Ratings restated a “hold (c)” rating on shares of TELUS in a research note on Wednesday, November 19th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, two have assigned a Buy rating, seven have issued a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, TELUS currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $18.17.

TELUS Price Performance

Shares of NYSE TU opened at $12.96 on Wednesday. The firm has a market cap of $19.89 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.55, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 6.66 and a beta of 0.71. The business’s 50 day moving average is $14.95 and its 200-day moving average is $15.76. The company has a current ratio of 0.76, a quick ratio of 0.71 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.47. TELUS Corporation has a 1-year low of $12.87 and a 1-year high of $16.74.

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Friday, November 7th. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.17 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.19 by ($0.02). TELUS had a net margin of 5.71% and a return on equity of 8.76%. The firm had revenue of $3.67 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.77 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $0.28 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was up .1% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts predict that TELUS Corporation will post 0.71 earnings per share for the current year.

TELUS Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, January 2nd. Shareholders of record on Thursday, December 11th will be paid a $0.4184 dividend. This is a positive change from TELUS’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.30. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, December 11th. This represents a $1.67 annualized dividend and a yield of 12.9%. TELUS’s dividend payout ratio is presently 220.00%.

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.