Insider Selling: Great-West Lifeco Inc. (TSE:GWO) Senior Officer Sells C$438,927.25 in Stock

Great-West Lifeco Inc. (TSE:GWO) Senior Officer Linda Kerrigan sold 8,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of C$51.64, for a total transaction of C$438,927.25.

Great-West Lifeco Price Performance

Shares of Great-West Lifeco stock opened at C$52.09 on Friday. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of C$48.01 and a two-hundred day moving average price of C$46.82. The company has a market cap of C$48.50 billion, a PE ratio of 11.92, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.26 and a beta of 0.84. Great-West Lifeco Inc. has a fifty-two week low of C$38.44 and a fifty-two week high of C$52.48.

Great-West Lifeco Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, December 31st. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, December 31st were issued a dividend of $0.555 per share. This represents a $2.22 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 4.26%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, December 3rd. Great-West Lifeco’s payout ratio is 50.79%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

GWO has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. TD Securities upgraded shares of Great-West Lifeco from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their target price for the company from C$49.00 to C$53.00 in a research note on Friday, February 7th. Cibc World Mkts upgraded shares of Great-West Lifeco from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, February 6th. BMO Capital Markets raised their target price on shares of Great-West Lifeco from C$52.00 to C$54.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, February 7th. Royal Bank of Canada raised their target price on shares of Great-West Lifeco from C$51.00 to C$53.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Friday, February 7th. Finally, Desjardins increased their price target on shares of Great-West Lifeco from C$49.00 to C$53.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, February 7th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given a hold rating, three have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of C$52.22.

About Great-West Lifeco

Great-West Lifeco is one of the three big Canadian life insurance firms. With just under half of the firm’s profit and revenue in Canada, Great-West also operates in the U.S. and Europe. In Canada, Great-West provides both individual and group insurance. In the United States, Great-West operates Putnam Investments and defined-contribution recordkeeping firm Empower Retirement.