TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) Shares Sold by Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan Trust Fund

Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan Trust Fund cut its stake in TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) by 43.7% during the 1st quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 303,330 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock after selling 235,258 shares during the quarter. Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan Trust Fund’s holdings in TELUS were worth $4,855,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the stock. National Bank of Canada FI raised its stake in shares of TELUS by 7.2% during the first quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 21,461,769 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $345,330,000 after purchasing an additional 1,438,904 shares during the period. Burgundy Asset Management Ltd. lifted its holdings in TELUS by 33.7% in the 1st quarter. Burgundy Asset Management Ltd. now owns 102,286 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $1,636,000 after buying an additional 25,795 shares in the last quarter. UniSuper Management Pty Ltd acquired a new position in TELUS in the 1st quarter worth $58,000. Seven Eight Capital LP purchased a new position in TELUS in the 1st quarter valued at about $938,000. Finally, Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board grew its stake in shares of TELUS by 29.2% during the first quarter. Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board now owns 79,854 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $1,278,000 after acquiring an additional 18,049 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 49.40% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

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

TELUS Price Performance

Shares of TU stock opened at $15.83 on Friday. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $15.85 and a two-hundred day moving average of $16.59. The firm has a market cap of $23.36 billion, a P/E ratio of 40.58, a P/E/G ratio of 2.38 and a beta of 0.73. TELUS Co. has a 1-year low of $14.63 and a 1-year high of $19.14. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.42, a current ratio of 0.75 and a quick ratio of 0.70.

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

TELUS Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared 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 positive change from TELUS’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.28. This represents a $1.13 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 7.13%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, June 10th. TELUS’s dividend payout ratio is currently 292.32%.

TELUS 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.