Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Purchases 126,488 Shares of TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU)

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board increased its position in TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) by 11.2% during the 1st quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 1,252,092 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 126,488 shares during the period. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board’s holdings in TELUS were worth $20,050,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board purchased a new position in shares of TELUS during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $1,100,000. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in TELUS by 4.8% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 22,834,015 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $406,217,000 after acquiring an additional 1,044,988 shares in the last quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp purchased a new stake in shares of TELUS in the first quarter worth $1,991,000. Virtu Financial LLC bought a new position in shares of TELUS during the fourth quarter valued at $376,000. Finally, TD Asset Management Inc increased its holdings in shares of TELUS by 18.4% during the fourth quarter. TD Asset Management Inc now owns 40,669,392 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $727,275,000 after acquiring an additional 6,334,692 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 49.40% of the company’s stock.

TELUS Stock Up 0.3 %

Shares of TELUS stock traded up $0.05 on Friday, reaching $15.88. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 2,611,053 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,650,320. The company has a market capitalization of $23.53 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 40.72, a P/E/G ratio of 2.40 and a beta of 0.73. The company has a quick ratio of 0.70, a current ratio of 0.75 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.42. TELUS Co. has a 52 week low of $14.63 and a 52 week high of $19.14. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $15.83 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $16.56.

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 9th. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.19 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.18 by $0.01. TELUS had a return on equity of 7.90% and a net margin of 3.73%. The company had revenue of $3.66 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.73 billion. Equities analysts anticipate that TELUS Co. will post 0.75 earnings per share for the current year.

TELUS Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, July 2nd. Stockholders of record on Monday, June 10th were paid a $0.282 dividend. This is an increase from TELUS’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.28. This represents a $1.13 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 7.10%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, June 10th. TELUS’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 292.32%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

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

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.