White Pine Capital LLC Sells 2,839 Shares of TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU)

White Pine Capital LLC reduced its stake in shares of TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) by 8.3% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 31,355 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock after selling 2,839 shares during the period. White Pine Capital LLC’s holdings in TELUS were worth $558,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Quadrature Capital Ltd purchased a new stake in TELUS in the third quarter valued at about $28,436,000. Scotia Capital Inc. raised its stake in TELUS by 10.2% in the third quarter. Scotia Capital Inc. now owns 16,675,010 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $272,179,000 after buying an additional 1,542,942 shares during the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. raised its stake in TELUS by 14.1% in the third quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 11,374,743 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $185,863,000 after buying an additional 1,409,188 shares during the last quarter. Toronto Dominion Bank raised its stake in TELUS by 7.6% in the third quarter. Toronto Dominion Bank now owns 15,971,196 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $260,969,000 after buying an additional 1,126,322 shares during the last quarter. Finally, AEGON ASSET MANAGEMENT UK Plc purchased a new stake in TELUS in the fourth quarter valued at about $19,989,000. 49.40% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

TELUS Stock Performance

TELUS stock traded down $0.03 during midday trading on Friday, hitting $16.07. 1,544,884 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,561,999. The firm has a market capitalization of $23.72 billion, a PE ratio of 37.37, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.96 and a beta of 0.72. TELUS Co. has a fifty-two week low of $15.35 and a fifty-two week high of $21.28. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $16.61 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $17.26. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.35, a quick ratio of 0.62 and a current ratio of 0.67.

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) last posted its earnings results 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. TELUS had a return on equity of 7.81% and a net margin of 4.18%. The firm had revenue of $5.20 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.24 billion. During the same period last year, the company earned $0.17 earnings per share. TELUS’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.8% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that TELUS Co. will post 0.76 earnings per share for the current year.

TELUS Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, April 1st. Shareholders 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. This represents a $1.12 annualized dividend and a yield of 6.95%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, March 8th. TELUS’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 258.14%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several brokerages have recently issued reports on TU. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut TELUS from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 4th. StockNews.com cut TELUS from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 26th. BMO Capital Markets reduced their price objective on TELUS from $27.00 to $26.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, February 12th. Finally, Scotiabank restated a “sector perform” rating and issued a $26.00 price objective (down from $28.00) on shares of TELUS in a research note on Monday, March 25th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, TELUS presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus 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.