Artisan Partners Limited Partnership Buys New Position in TransAlta Co. (NYSE:TAC)

Artisan Partners Limited Partnership purchased a new position in TransAlta Co. (NYSE:TAC) (TSE:TA) in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor purchased 4,746,051 shares of the utilities provider’s stock, valued at approximately $67,038,000.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in TAC. Tobam bought a new stake in shares of TransAlta during the 4th quarter worth $46,000. Quantbot Technologies LP purchased a new stake in TransAlta in the third quarter worth approximately $61,000. Ballentine Partners LLC bought a new position in shares of TransAlta during the 4th quarter valued at $145,000. Private Advisor Group LLC bought a new position in shares of TransAlta during the fourth quarter valued at about $150,000. Finally, Sage Investment Counsel LLC bought a new position in TransAlta during the 4th quarter worth approximately $156,000. Institutional investors own 59.00% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have issued reports on TAC. StockNews.com lowered shares of TransAlta from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, February 21st. CIBC raised TransAlta from a “neutral” rating to an “outperformer” rating and reduced their target price for the company from $23.00 to $19.50 in a research note on Tuesday, February 18th. Cibc World Mkts raised TransAlta from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, February 18th. Finally, Scotiabank downgraded shares of TransAlta from a “sector outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 23rd. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $19.50.

TransAlta Trading Down 2.2 %

NYSE:TAC opened at $9.41 on Friday. TransAlta Co. has a 52 week low of $5.94 and a 52 week high of $14.64. The stock has a market cap of $2.80 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.94 and a beta of 0.89. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $10.70 and its 200-day moving average price is $11.17. The company has a quick ratio of 0.67, a current ratio of 0.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.94.

TransAlta (NYSE:TAC) (TSE:TA) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, February 20th. The utilities provider reported ($0.16) EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.12 by ($0.28). The business had revenue of $484.60 million during the quarter. TransAlta had a return on equity of 18.47% and a net margin of 6.38%. On average, equities research analysts forecast that TransAlta Co. will post 0.41 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

TransAlta Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, July 1st. Shareholders of record on Sunday, June 1st will be given a $0.0458 dividend. This is a positive change from TransAlta’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.04. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, May 30th. This represents a $0.18 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.95%. TransAlta’s payout ratio is 43.90%.

TransAlta Profile

TransAlta Corporation engages in the development, production, and sale of electric energy. It operates through Hydro, Wind and Solar, Gas, Energy Transition, and Energy Marketing segments. The Hydro segment holds interest of approximately 922 megawatts (MW) of owned hydroelectric generating capacity located in Alberta, British Columbia, and Ontario.