Swiss National Bank Sells 45,200 Shares of TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU)

Swiss National Bank reduced its stake in TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) by 3.1% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 1,428,265 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock after selling 45,200 shares during the period. Swiss National Bank owned approximately 0.10% of TELUS worth $19,356,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of TU. National Bank of Canada FI increased its holdings in TELUS by 24.2% in the 3rd quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 26,160,789 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $438,922,000 after acquiring an additional 5,094,269 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC increased its holdings in TELUS by 192.0% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 1,326,632 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $22,257,000 after acquiring an additional 872,235 shares during the last quarter. Centre Asset Management LLC bought a new stake in TELUS in the 4th quarter valued at $6,946,000. Duff & Phelps Investment Management Co. increased its holdings in TELUS by 13.5% in the 3rd quarter. Duff & Phelps Investment Management Co. now owns 2,666,500 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $44,785,000 after acquiring an additional 317,000 shares during the last quarter. Finally, BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp increased its holdings in TELUS by 132.4% in the 3rd quarter. BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp now owns 479,785 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $8,048,000 after acquiring an additional 273,368 shares during the last quarter. 49.40% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts have recently weighed in on TU shares. Cormark downgraded shares of TELUS from a “moderate buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 4th. Morgan Stanley started coverage on shares of TELUS in a report on Monday, December 16th. They issued an “equal weight” rating on the stock. National Bank Financial downgraded shares of TELUS from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a report on Friday, December 13th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded shares of TELUS from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Monday, February 10th. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, TELUS presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $26.00.

TELUS Price Performance

TU stock opened at $15.00 on Wednesday. TELUS Co. has a 12 month low of $13.24 and a 12 month high of $17.27. The company has a current ratio of 0.68, a quick ratio of 0.61 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.52. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $14.80 and a 200 day moving average price of $15.33. The stock has a market cap of $22.70 billion, a PE ratio of 30.60, a P/E/G ratio of 5.18 and a beta of 0.72.

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 13th. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.18 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.16 by $0.02. TELUS had a net margin of 4.85% and a return on equity of 9.07%. The firm had revenue of $3.85 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.64 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $0.10 EPS. Equities research analysts anticipate that TELUS Co. will post 0.71 earnings per share for the current year.

TELUS Cuts Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, April 1st. Investors of record on Tuesday, March 11th will be paid a dividend of $0.2829 per share. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, March 11th. This represents a $1.13 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 7.55%. TELUS’s dividend payout ratio is presently 226.53%.

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.