Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. Raises Holdings in TransAlta Co. (NYSE:TAC)

Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. grew its stake in TransAlta Co. (NYSE:TAC) (TSE:TA) by 638.9% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 7,995,489 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 6,913,431 shares during the quarter. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd.’s holdings in TransAlta were worth $112,936,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the company. Entropy Technologies LP acquired a new position in TransAlta in the 3rd quarter valued at $130,000. Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. acquired a new stake in TransAlta in the 3rd quarter worth about $194,000. Metis Global Partners LLC purchased a new stake in TransAlta in the 3rd quarter valued at about $360,000. PCJ Investment Counsel Ltd. acquired a new position in shares of TransAlta during the 3rd quarter valued at about $2,573,000. Finally, Mirabella Financial Services LLP acquired a new position in shares of TransAlta during the 3rd quarter valued at about $200,000. 59.00% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts recently issued reports on TAC shares. StockNews.com downgraded shares of TransAlta from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, February 21st. Cibc World Mkts upgraded TransAlta from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, February 18th. CIBC raised TransAlta from a “neutral” rating to an “outperformer” rating and reduced their price objective for the company from $23.00 to $19.50 in a research note on Tuesday, February 18th. Finally, Scotiabank downgraded shares of TransAlta from a “sector outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 23rd. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $19.50.

TransAlta Trading Up 6.7 %

NYSE:TAC opened at $9.35 on Wednesday. TransAlta Co. has a 12 month low of $5.94 and a 12 month high of $14.64. The business’s 50-day moving average is $11.64 and its two-hundred day moving average is $11.13. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.94, a current ratio of 0.74 and a quick ratio of 0.67. The firm has a market capitalization of $2.78 billion, a PE ratio of 22.79 and a beta of 0.89.

TransAlta (NYSE:TAC) (TSE:TA) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 20th. The utilities provider reported ($0.16) earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.12 by ($0.28). The company had revenue of $484.60 million during the quarter. TransAlta had a return on equity of 18.47% and a net margin of 6.38%. Research analysts predict that TransAlta Co. will post 0.41 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

TransAlta Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, July 1st. Stockholders of record on Sunday, June 1st will be given a dividend of $0.0458 per share. This represents a $0.18 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.96%. This is a positive change from TransAlta’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.04. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, May 30th. TransAlta’s payout ratio is presently 43.90%.

TransAlta Company Profile

TransAlta Corporation engages in the development, production, and sale of electric energy. It operates through Hydro, Wind and Solar, Gas, Energy Transition, and Energy Marketing segments. The Hydro segment holds interest of approximately 922 megawatts (MW) of owned hydroelectric generating capacity located in Alberta, British Columbia, and Ontario.