Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE:CCI) Shares Sold by Verition Fund Management LLC

Verition Fund Management LLC lowered its stake in shares of Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE:CCI) by 75.7% in the third quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 2,763 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock after selling 8,605 shares during the period. Verition Fund Management LLC’s holdings in Crown Castle were worth $328,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Several other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of CCI. Van ECK Associates Corp lifted its position in shares of Crown Castle by 24.7% in the third quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 157,895 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $17,476,000 after acquiring an additional 31,319 shares in the last quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC boosted its stake in Crown Castle by 4.2% during the 3rd quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 5,088,017 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $603,592,000 after purchasing an additional 203,442 shares during the last quarter. Quest Partners LLC raised its holdings in Crown Castle by 3,111.6% in the 3rd quarter. Quest Partners LLC now owns 13,328 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $1,581,000 after acquiring an additional 12,913 shares during the last quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans boosted its stake in Crown Castle by 7.9% during the third quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans now owns 1,059,300 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $125,665,000 after buying an additional 77,135 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. grew its holdings in Crown Castle by 2,706.0% in the 3rd quarter. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. now owns 105,563 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $12,523,000 after buying an additional 101,801 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 90.77% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have recently weighed in on CCI. UBS Group boosted their price target on shares of Crown Castle from $103.00 to $118.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 17th. Wells Fargo & Company lowered shares of Crown Castle from an “equal weight” rating to an “underweight” rating and decreased their target price for the company from $105.00 to $100.00 in a report on Tuesday. The Goldman Sachs Group raised their price target on shares of Crown Castle from $105.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, September 26th. Citigroup set a $128.00 price objective on Crown Castle in a report on Thursday, October 17th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada raised their target price on Crown Castle from $104.00 to $109.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Monday, October 28th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have given a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $116.53.

Crown Castle Stock Performance

Shares of Crown Castle stock opened at $97.10 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $42.20 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 34.43 and a beta of 0.86. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.43, a current ratio of 0.54 and a quick ratio of 0.54. The business has a 50-day moving average of $106.57 and a 200 day moving average of $107.08. Crown Castle Inc. has a 12 month low of $92.48 and a 12 month high of $120.92.

Crown Castle (NYSE:CCI) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October 16th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.70 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.73 by ($1.03). Crown Castle had a net margin of 18.59% and a return on equity of 20.98%. The business had revenue of $1.65 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.64 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $1.77 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down .9% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Crown Castle Inc. will post 6.66 earnings per share for the current year.

Crown Castle Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, December 31st. Stockholders of record on Friday, December 13th will be paid a $1.565 dividend. This represents a $6.26 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 6.45%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, December 13th. Crown Castle’s payout ratio is currently 221.99%.

About Crown Castle

Crown Castle owns, operates and leases more than 40,000 cell towers and approximately 90,000 route miles of fiber supporting small cells and fiber solutions across every major U.S. market. This nationwide portfolio of communications infrastructure connects cities and communities to essential data, technology and wireless service – bringing information, ideas and innovations to the people and businesses that need them.