AEGON ASSET MANAGEMENT UK Plc Increases Holdings in TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU)

AEGON ASSET MANAGEMENT UK Plc increased its stake in TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) by 6.9% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 1,017,200 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock after buying an additional 65,940 shares during the quarter. AEGON ASSET MANAGEMENT UK Plc’s holdings in TELUS were worth $13,785,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Walter Public Investments Inc. raised its holdings in shares of TELUS by 1.9% in the 3rd quarter. Walter Public Investments Inc. now owns 38,161 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $640,000 after purchasing an additional 708 shares in the last quarter. Trust Co. of Vermont raised its stake in shares of TELUS by 19.0% during the 3rd quarter. Trust Co. of Vermont now owns 7,623 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $128,000 after buying an additional 1,218 shares during the last quarter. Blue Trust Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of TELUS by 58.0% in the 3rd quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 4,001 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $67,000 after buying an additional 1,468 shares during the period. Public Sector Pension Investment Board boosted its stake in shares of TELUS by 2.0% in the third quarter. Public Sector Pension Investment Board now owns 77,198 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $1,297,000 after buying an additional 1,500 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Versant Capital Management Inc grew its holdings in TELUS by 195,100.0% during the fourth quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc now owns 1,952 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $26,000 after acquiring an additional 1,951 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 49.40% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research analysts have weighed in on TU shares. Morgan Stanley began coverage on shares of TELUS in a report on Monday, December 16th. They issued an “equal weight” rating for the company. National Bank Financial lowered TELUS from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Friday, December 13th. StockNews.com downgraded TELUS from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 21st. Finally, Scotiabank raised shares of TELUS from a “sector perform” rating to a “sector outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, October 28th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $26.00.

TELUS Stock Down 0.2 %

Shares of NYSE:TU opened at $14.13 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $21.19 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.05, a PEG ratio of 4.69 and a beta of 0.74. TELUS Co. has a 12-month low of $13.24 and a 12-month high of $18.35. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $14.47 and a 200 day moving average price of $15.56. The company has a current ratio of 0.69, a quick ratio of 0.63 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.50.

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) last announced its earnings results on Friday, November 8th. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.28 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.17 by $0.11. TELUS had a return on equity of 8.80% and a net margin of 4.56%. The company had revenue of $5.10 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.69 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $0.19 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts expect that TELUS Co. will post 0.72 EPS for the current year.

TELUS Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, January 2nd. Investors of record on Wednesday, December 11th were issued a $0.297 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, December 11th. This is a positive change from TELUS’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.28. This represents a $1.19 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 8.41%. TELUS’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 242.56%.

TELUS 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.