Federated Hermes Inc. Purchases 610,416 Shares of TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU)

Federated Hermes Inc. lifted its position in shares of TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) by 36.7% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 2,272,505 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 610,416 shares during the quarter. Federated Hermes Inc.’s holdings in TELUS were worth $40,428,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other large investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in TU. Advisor Group Holdings Inc. boosted its position in TELUS by 60.9% during the first quarter. Advisor Group Holdings Inc. now owns 14,694 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $260,000 after purchasing an additional 5,560 shares during the period. Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. raised its position in shares of TELUS by 36.2% in the first quarter. Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. now owns 29,093 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $761,000 after purchasing an additional 7,737 shares during the period. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. lifted its stake in shares of TELUS by 59.3% during the 1st quarter. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 5,666 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $148,000 after buying an additional 2,109 shares in the last quarter. Aviva PLC boosted its holdings in TELUS by 156.0% in the 1st quarter. Aviva PLC now owns 479,131 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $12,536,000 after buying an additional 291,979 shares during the period. Finally, Cetera Investment Advisers purchased a new position in TELUS in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $206,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 49.40% of the company’s stock.

TELUS Price Performance

TELUS stock opened at $15.91 on Friday. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $16.75 and a 200 day simple moving average of $17.26. TELUS Co. has a 52 week low of $15.35 and a 52 week high of $21.34. The stock has a market cap of $23.48 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 37.00, a PEG ratio of 1.92 and a beta of 0.72. The company has a quick ratio of 0.62, a current ratio of 0.67 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.35.

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Friday, February 9th. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.18 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.17 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $5.20 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.24 billion. TELUS had a return on equity of 7.81% and a net margin of 4.18%. TELUS’s revenue was up 2.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $0.17 earnings per share. On average, research analysts forecast that TELUS Co. will post 0.76 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

TELUS Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, April 1st. Stockholders of record on Monday, March 11th were issued a $0.2793 dividend. This is a positive change from TELUS’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.27. The ex-dividend date was Friday, March 8th. This represents a $1.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 7.02%. TELUS’s dividend payout ratio is presently 258.14%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts have recently commented on TU shares. BMO Capital Markets cut their price target on TELUS from $27.00 to $26.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Monday, February 12th. StockNews.com downgraded TELUS from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 26th. Scotiabank reaffirmed a “sector perform” rating and set a $26.00 target price (down previously from $28.00) on shares of TELUS in a report on Monday, March 25th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded shares of TELUS from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, January 4th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and one has issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, TELUS currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $27.72.

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.