Intact Investment Management Inc. Lowers Stock Position in TransAlta Co. (NYSE:TAC)

Intact Investment Management Inc. reduced its stake in shares of TransAlta Co. (NYSE:TAC) (TSE:TA) by 16.3% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 1,343,450 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after selling 262,400 shares during the period. Intact Investment Management Inc. owned 0.45% of TransAlta worth $18,998,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. lifted its position in shares of TransAlta by 638.9% during the 4th quarter. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. now owns 7,995,489 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $112,936,000 after buying an additional 6,913,431 shares in the last quarter. Rubric Capital Management LP raised its stake in TransAlta by 20.0% during the 3rd quarter. Rubric Capital Management LP now owns 5,622,961 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $58,254,000 after purchasing an additional 935,803 shares during the period. FMR LLC raised its stake in TransAlta by 9.8% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 4,593,023 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $47,613,000 after purchasing an additional 408,184 shares during the period. Yaupon Capital Management LP raised its stake in TransAlta by 69.9% during the 3rd quarter. Yaupon Capital Management LP now owns 2,685,955 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $27,840,000 after purchasing an additional 1,105,191 shares during the period. Finally, Point72 Asset Management L.P. raised its stake in TransAlta by 37.8% during the 3rd quarter. Point72 Asset Management L.P. now owns 1,286,800 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $13,343,000 after purchasing an additional 352,860 shares during the period. 59.00% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

TAC has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. CIBC raised TransAlta from a “neutral” rating to an “outperformer” rating and decreased their target price for the company from $23.00 to $19.50 in a research note on Tuesday, February 18th. StockNews.com downgraded TransAlta from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, February 21st. Scotiabank downgraded TransAlta from a “sector outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 23rd. Finally, Cibc World Mkts raised TransAlta from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, February 18th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $19.50.

TransAlta Stock Performance

NYSE:TAC opened at $9.41 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.94, a current ratio of 0.74 and a quick ratio of 0.67. TransAlta Co. has a 1 year low of $5.94 and a 1 year high of $14.64. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $11.46 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $11.11. The company has a market cap of $2.80 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.94 and a beta of 0.89.

TransAlta (NYSE:TAC) (TSE:TA) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 20th. The utilities provider reported ($0.16) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.12 by ($0.28). The firm 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%. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that TransAlta Co. will post 0.41 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

TransAlta Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, July 1st. Stockholders of record on Sunday, June 1st will be issued a $0.0458 dividend. This is a boost from TransAlta’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.04. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, May 30th. This represents a $0.18 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.95%. TransAlta’s payout ratio is 43.90%.

TransAlta 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.