Lorne Steinberg Wealth Management Inc. Decreases Position in TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU)

Lorne Steinberg Wealth Management Inc. trimmed its holdings in TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) by 1.5% in the second quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 250,081 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock after selling 3,757 shares during the quarter. Lorne Steinberg Wealth Management Inc.’s holdings in TELUS were worth $3,784,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board purchased a new stake in TELUS in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $1,100,000. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board raised its position in TELUS by 11.2% in the 1st quarter. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board now owns 1,252,092 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $20,050,000 after purchasing an additional 126,488 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in TELUS by 4.8% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 22,834,015 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $406,217,000 after purchasing an additional 1,044,988 shares during the period. Van ECK Associates Corp purchased a new position in TELUS during the 1st quarter worth $1,991,000. Finally, Virtu Financial LLC purchased a new position in shares of TELUS in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $376,000. 49.40% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several analysts have recently weighed in on TU shares. Canaccord Genuity Group downgraded shares of TELUS from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 6th. StockNews.com cut TELUS from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Friday, June 14th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $27.33.

TELUS Price Performance

NYSE TU traded up $0.05 during trading hours on Friday, reaching $16.00. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 1,265,835 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,186,693. The stock has a market cap of $23.71 billion, a PE ratio of 41.03, a PEG ratio of 2.44 and a beta of 0.73. TELUS Co. has a fifty-two week low of $14.63 and a fifty-two week high of $19.14. The company’s 50-day moving average is $15.78 and its two-hundred day moving average is $16.38. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.46, a quick ratio of 0.61 and a current ratio of 0.66.

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) last released its earnings results on Friday, August 2nd. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.25 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.16 by $0.09. The company had revenue of $3.64 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.70 billion. TELUS had a net margin of 3.87% and a return on equity of 8.50%. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $0.14 EPS. Analysts forecast that TELUS Co. will post 0.73 EPS for the current year.

TELUS Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, October 1st. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, September 10th will be issued a dividend of $0.284 per share. This is a positive change from TELUS’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.28. This represents a $1.14 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 7.10%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, September 10th. TELUS’s dividend payout ratio is presently 292.32%.

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.