Citigroup Inc. Grows Position in TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU)

Citigroup Inc. grew its stake in shares of TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) by 15.4% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 390,486 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 52,105 shares during the period. Citigroup Inc.’s holdings in TELUS were worth $6,558,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in TU. TD Asset Management Inc increased its stake in TELUS by 3.0% in the 2nd quarter. TD Asset Management Inc now owns 41,711,861 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $631,310,000 after purchasing an additional 1,208,720 shares in the last quarter. 1832 Asset Management L.P. grew its holdings in TELUS by 6.6% in the second quarter. 1832 Asset Management L.P. now owns 38,193,733 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $578,253,000 after purchasing an additional 2,365,753 shares during the last quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc increased its position in shares of TELUS by 1.8% in the second quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc now owns 22,404,617 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $338,953,000 after buying an additional 387,686 shares in the last quarter. Fiera Capital Corp raised its stake in shares of TELUS by 1.3% during the 3rd quarter. Fiera Capital Corp now owns 16,882,528 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $283,854,000 after buying an additional 211,815 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Toronto Dominion Bank boosted its position in shares of TELUS by 5.4% in the 2nd quarter. Toronto Dominion Bank now owns 12,472,610 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $188,835,000 after buying an additional 636,845 shares in the last quarter. 49.40% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

TU has been the subject of several recent research reports. Scotiabank upgraded shares of TELUS from a “sector perform” rating to a “sector outperform” rating in a report on Monday, October 28th. StockNews.com cut shares of TELUS from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 21st. Finally, Canaccord Genuity Group lowered TELUS from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 6th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $26.00.

TELUS Price Performance

TELUS stock opened at $15.54 on Friday. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $15.94 and its two-hundred day moving average is $16.03. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.50, a current ratio of 0.69 and a quick ratio of 0.63. The stock has a market capitalization of $23.31 billion, a P/E ratio of 33.06, a P/E/G ratio of 2.23 and a beta of 0.75. TELUS Co. has a 12-month low of $14.63 and a 12-month high of $19.14.

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) last released its earnings results on Friday, November 8th. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.28 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.17 by $0.11. TELUS had a net margin of 4.56% and a return on equity of 8.80%. The firm had revenue of $5.10 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.69 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $0.19 EPS. TELUS’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. Equities analysts predict that TELUS Co. will post 0.73 earnings per share for the current year.

TELUS Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, January 2nd. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, December 11th will be paid a $0.297 dividend. This represents a $1.19 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 7.64%. This is a positive change from TELUS’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.28. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, December 11th. TELUS’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 244.69%.

TELUS Company 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.