40,534 Shares in TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) Acquired by Magnetar Financial LLC

Magnetar Financial LLC acquired a new position in shares of TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) in the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund acquired 40,534 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock, valued at approximately $649,000.

Several other large investors have also recently modified their holdings of TU. Bank of Nova Scotia Trust Co. grew its position in TELUS by 2.6% during the 1st quarter. Bank of Nova Scotia Trust Co. now owns 1,890,075 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $30,260,000 after purchasing an additional 48,223 shares during the last quarter. 1832 Asset Management L.P. boosted its holdings in TELUS by 0.6% during the first quarter. 1832 Asset Management L.P. now owns 35,827,980 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $573,606,000 after buying an additional 213,385 shares in the last quarter. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board boosted its holdings in TELUS by 11.2% during the first quarter. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board now owns 1,252,092 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $20,050,000 after buying an additional 126,488 shares in the last quarter. Guardian Capital LP boosted its holdings in TELUS by 27.8% during the first quarter. Guardian Capital LP now owns 5,486,529 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $87,857,000 after buying an additional 1,195,035 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Capital World Investors boosted its holdings in TELUS by 7.8% during the first quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 143,106 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $2,289,000 after buying an additional 10,327 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 49.40% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

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

TELUS Price Performance

NYSE:TU traded down $0.04 during trading hours on Monday, reaching $15.84. 91,063 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,277,305. The company has a current ratio of 0.75, a quick ratio of 0.70 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.42. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $15.83 and its 200-day moving average is $16.55. The firm has a market cap of $23.47 billion, a PE ratio of 40.72, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.40 and a beta of 0.74. TELUS Co. has a twelve month low of $14.63 and a twelve month high of $19.14.

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, May 9th. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.19 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.18 by $0.01. The business had revenue of $3.66 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.73 billion. TELUS had a net margin of 3.73% and a return on equity of 7.90%. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that TELUS Co. will post 0.75 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

TELUS Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, July 2nd. Investors of record on Monday, June 10th were given a dividend of $0.282 per share. This is a boost from TELUS’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.28. This represents a $1.13 annualized dividend and a yield of 7.12%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, June 10th. TELUS’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 292.32%.

About TELUS

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.