TransAlta Co. (NYSE:TAC) Declares $0.04 Quarterly Dividend

TransAlta Co. (NYSE:TAC) (TSE:TA) declared a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, December 11th, Wall Street Journal reports. Shareholders of record on Saturday, March 1st will be paid a dividend of 0.0423 per share by the utilities provider on Tuesday, April 1st. This represents a $0.17 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.59%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, February 28th.

TransAlta has raised its dividend by an average of 8.8% per year over the last three years. TransAlta has a dividend payout ratio of 106.3% meaning the company cannot currently cover its dividend with earnings alone and is relying on its balance sheet to cover its dividend payments. Equities analysts expect TransAlta to earn $0.44 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.17 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 38.6%.

TransAlta Stock Performance

NYSE:TAC opened at $10.63 on Wednesday. The company has a market cap of $3.16 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.92 and a beta of 0.83. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $12.59 and its 200-day moving average price is $11.02. TransAlta has a twelve month low of $5.94 and a twelve month high of $14.64. The company has a current ratio of 0.74, a quick ratio of 0.67 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.94.

TransAlta (NYSE:TAC) (TSE:TA) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 20th. The utilities provider reported ($0.16) earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.12 by ($0.28). The business 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%. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that TransAlta will post 0.41 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

TAC has been the subject of several recent research reports. CIBC raised shares of TransAlta from a “neutral” rating to an “outperformer” rating and lowered their price objective for the company from $23.00 to $19.50 in a research note on Tuesday, February 18th. Desjardins reissued a “hold” rating on shares of TransAlta in a research report on Wednesday, November 6th. Cibc World Mkts raised TransAlta from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 18th. Scotiabank lowered TransAlta from a “sector outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 23rd. Finally, StockNews.com cut TransAlta from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, February 21st. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $19.50.

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.