Principal Financial Group Inc. Has $1.30 Million Stock Holdings in TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU)

Principal Financial Group Inc. lowered its stake in shares of TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) by 3.7% in the third quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 77,504 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock after selling 3,000 shares during the period. Principal Financial Group Inc.’s holdings in TELUS were worth $1,302,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the company. Fairscale Capital LLC acquired a new position in TELUS in the second quarter worth approximately $27,000. Blue Trust Inc. grew its position in TELUS by 58.0% in the third quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 4,001 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $67,000 after acquiring an additional 1,468 shares in the last quarter. Trust Co. of Vermont increased 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 worth $128,000 after purchasing an additional 1,218 shares during the last quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC bought a new position in shares of TELUS during the 2nd quarter valued at $123,000. Finally, B. Riley Wealth Advisors Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of TELUS in the 2nd quarter valued at $163,000. 49.40% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

TELUS Stock Up 1.1 %

TU stock opened at $13.78 on Friday. 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 company has a 50-day moving average of $14.98 and a two-hundred day moving average of $15.71. The stock has a market capitalization of $20.67 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.32, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.10 and a beta of 0.73. TELUS Co. has a 52-week low of $13.24 and a 52-week high of $18.55.

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) last released 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 firm had revenue of $5.10 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.69 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $0.19 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that TELUS Co. will post 0.73 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 given a dividend of $0.297 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, December 11th. This represents a $1.19 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 8.62%. This is a positive change from TELUS’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.28. TELUS’s payout ratio is 253.19%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms have commented on TU. National Bank Financial downgraded shares of TELUS from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Friday, December 13th. StockNews.com lowered TELUS from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Thursday, November 21st. Scotiabank upgraded TELUS from a “sector perform” rating to a “sector outperform” rating in a report on Monday, October 28th. Finally, Morgan Stanley initiated coverage on TELUS in a report on Monday, December 16th. They set an “equal weight” rating on the stock. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, TELUS currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $26.00.

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.