National Bank Financial Upgrades Cogeco Communications (TSE:CCA) to Strong-Buy

National Bank Financial upgraded shares of Cogeco Communications (TSE:CCA) from a hold rating to a strong-buy rating in a report issued on Thursday morning, Zacks.com reports.

Several other equities research analysts have also recently issued reports on CCA. Desjardins raised their price target on shares of Cogeco Communications from C$64.00 to C$69.00 and gave the stock a hold rating in a research note on Monday, July 15th. Royal Bank of Canada raised their price target on shares of Cogeco Communications from C$73.00 to C$76.00 and gave the stock a sector perform rating in a research note on Monday, July 15th. TD Securities raised their price target on shares of Cogeco Communications from C$80.00 to C$85.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Monday, July 15th. BMO Capital Markets raised their price target on shares of Cogeco Communications from C$65.00 to C$70.00 in a research note on Thursday, September 5th. Finally, Bank of America raised shares of Cogeco Communications from an underperform rating to a buy rating and raised their price target for the stock from C$60.00 to C$65.00 in a research note on Wednesday, July 17th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, four have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Cogeco Communications currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of C$71.28.

Cogeco Communications Price Performance

Shares of TSE CCA opened at C$68.12 on Thursday. The stock has a market cap of C$2.04 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 8.69, a PEG ratio of 4.77 and a beta of 0.57. Cogeco Communications has a 52 week low of C$50.78 and a 52 week high of C$68.98. The company’s 50-day moving average price is C$64.23 and its 200 day moving average price is C$58.55. The company has a current ratio of 0.41, a quick ratio of 0.49 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 142.88.

Cogeco Communications (TSE:CCA) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, July 11th. The company reported C$2.45 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of C$1.73 by C$0.72. The firm had revenue of C$750.58 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of C$751.50 million. Cogeco Communications had a net margin of 11.44% and a return on equity of 10.52%. As a group, research analysts forecast that Cogeco Communications will post 8.2156863 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Cogeco Communications Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, August 8th. Investors of record on Thursday, July 25th were given a $0.854 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, July 25th. This represents a $3.42 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 5.01%. Cogeco Communications’s dividend payout ratio is presently 43.62%.

About Cogeco Communications

Cogeco Communications Inc operates as a telecommunications corporation in Canada and the United States. It operates in two segments, Canadian Telecommunications and American Telecommunications. The company offers Internet, video, and Internet protocol (IP) based telephony services to residential and small business customers through its two-way broadband fiber networks.