Toronto Dominion Bank Sells 2,603,866 Shares of TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU)

Toronto Dominion Bank cut its holdings in shares of TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) by 20.9% in the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 9,868,744 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock after selling 2,603,866 shares during the period. Toronto Dominion Bank’s holdings in TELUS were worth $165,598,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other large investors have also recently modified their holdings of TU. National Bank of Canada FI boosted its stake in shares of TELUS by 24.2% during the third quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 26,160,789 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $438,922,000 after purchasing an additional 5,094,269 shares in the last quarter. 1832 Asset Management L.P. grew its holdings in TELUS by 6.6% during the 2nd quarter. 1832 Asset Management L.P. now owns 38,193,733 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $578,253,000 after acquiring an additional 2,365,753 shares during the last quarter. Fiera Capital Corp grew its holdings in TELUS by 9.9% during the 2nd quarter. Fiera Capital Corp now owns 16,670,713 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $252,468,000 after acquiring an additional 1,501,742 shares during the last quarter. TD Asset Management Inc increased its position in TELUS by 3.0% in the 2nd quarter. TD Asset Management Inc now owns 41,711,861 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $631,310,000 after acquiring an additional 1,208,720 shares during the period. Finally, FMR LLC raised its stake in shares of TELUS by 192.0% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 1,326,632 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $22,257,000 after acquiring an additional 872,235 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 49.40% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research firms recently commented on TU. Scotiabank raised TELUS from a “sector perform” rating to a “sector outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, October 28th. StockNews.com lowered TELUS from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 21st. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $26.00.

TELUS Stock Performance

TU opened at $15.78 on Wednesday. TELUS Co. has a 1-year low of $14.63 and a 1-year high of $18.68. The company has a market cap of $23.66 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.53, a PEG ratio of 2.26 and a beta of 0.73. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $15.82 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $16.00. The company has a current ratio of 0.69, a quick ratio of 0.63 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.50.

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Friday, November 8th. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.28 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.17 by $0.11. The business had revenue of $5.10 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.69 billion. TELUS had a net margin of 4.56% and a return on equity of 8.80%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $0.19 EPS. On average, analysts expect that TELUS Co. will post 0.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

TELUS Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, January 2nd. Investors of record on Wednesday, December 11th will be issued a dividend of $0.297 per share. This is a positive change from TELUS’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.28. This represents a $1.19 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 7.53%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, December 11th. TELUS’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 253.19%.

About TELUS

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.