TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) Shares Acquired by Forsta AP Fonden

Forsta AP Fonden lifted its position in TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) by 2.4% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 360,300 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 8,600 shares during the quarter. Forsta AP Fonden’s holdings in TELUS were worth $4,886,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Versant Capital Management Inc boosted its holdings in shares of TELUS by 195,100.0% in the fourth quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc now owns 1,952 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $26,000 after acquiring an additional 1,951 shares during the period. Avior Wealth Management LLC boosted its stake in TELUS by 1,756.0% during the 4th quarter. Avior Wealth Management LLC now owns 4,807 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $65,000 after purchasing an additional 4,548 shares during the period. Blue Trust Inc. grew its position in TELUS by 58.0% during the 3rd quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 4,001 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $67,000 after purchasing an additional 1,468 shares during the last quarter. Trust Co. of Vermont increased its stake in TELUS by 19.0% in the third quarter. Trust Co. of Vermont now owns 7,623 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $128,000 after purchasing an additional 1,218 shares during the period. Finally, B. Riley Wealth Advisors Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of TELUS in the second quarter valued at about $163,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 49.40% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages recently issued reports on TU. Scotiabank upgraded TELUS from a “sector perform” rating to a “sector outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, October 28th. National Bank Financial cut TELUS from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Friday, December 13th. Morgan Stanley started coverage on TELUS in a report on Monday, December 16th. They set an “equal weight” rating for the company. Finally, StockNews.com cut shares of TELUS from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 21st. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, TELUS currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $26.00.

TELUS Stock Performance

Shares of TU stock opened at $14.52 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 0.69, a quick ratio of 0.63 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.50. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $14.40 and a 200-day simple moving average of $15.53. The company has a market cap of $21.77 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.88, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.79 and a beta of 0.74. TELUS Co. has a 12-month low of $13.24 and a 12-month high of $18.20.

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) last issued its earnings results on Friday, November 8th. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.28 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.17 by $0.11. The company had revenue of $5.10 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.69 billion. TELUS had a net margin of 4.56% and a return on equity of 8.80%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company posted $0.19 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts forecast that TELUS Co. will post 0.72 EPS for the current year.

TELUS Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, January 2nd. Investors of record on Wednesday, December 11th were given a dividend of $0.297 per share. This is an increase from TELUS’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.28. This represents a $1.19 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 8.18%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, December 11th. TELUS’s payout ratio is currently 242.56%.

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.