TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) Raises Dividend to $0.28 Per Share

TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) announced a quarterly dividend on Friday, August 2nd, Zacks reports. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, September 10th will be paid a dividend of 0.284 per share by the Wireless communications provider on Tuesday, October 1st. This represents a $1.14 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 6.84%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, September 10th. This is a boost from TELUS’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.28.

TELUS has raised its dividend by an average of 11.9% per year over the last three years. TELUS has a dividend payout ratio of 136.1% meaning the company cannot currently cover its dividend with earnings alone and is relying on its balance sheet to cover its dividend payments. Equities research analysts expect TELUS to earn $0.81 per share next year, which means the company may not be able to cover its $1.13 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 139.5%.

TELUS Stock Up 1.5 %

TELUS stock traded up $0.25 during mid-day trading on Friday, reaching $16.61. The stock had a trading volume of 4,975,023 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,831,283. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.42, a quick ratio of 0.70 and a current ratio of 0.75. TELUS has a fifty-two week low of $14.63 and a fifty-two week high of $19.14. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $15.81 and its 200-day simple moving average is $16.50. The firm has a market capitalization of $24.62 billion, a PE ratio of 42.60, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.47 and a beta of 0.73.

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 9th. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.19 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.18 by $0.01. TELUS had a return on equity of 7.90% and a net margin of 3.73%. The firm had revenue of $3.66 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.73 billion. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that TELUS will post 0.75 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Separately, StockNews.com cut TELUS from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Friday, June 14th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $26.20.

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.