TransAlta Co. (NYSE:TAC) Plans Quarterly Dividend of $0.05

TransAlta Co. (NYSE:TAC) (TSE:TA) declared a quarterly dividend on Friday, February 21st, Wall Street Journal reports. Investors of record on Sunday, June 1st will be given a dividend of 0.0458 per share by the utilities provider on Tuesday, July 1st. This represents a $0.18 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.68%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, May 30th. This is an increase from TransAlta’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.04.

TransAlta has increased its dividend by an average of 8.8% annually over the last three years. TransAlta has a payout ratio of 106.3% indicating that the company cannot currently cover its dividend with earnings alone and is relying on its balance sheet to cover its dividend payments. Equities research analysts expect TransAlta to earn $0.44 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.17 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 38.6%.

TransAlta Price Performance

NYSE TAC opened at $10.88 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $3.24 billion, a PE ratio of 26.53 and a beta of 0.83. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.94, a quick ratio of 0.67 and a current ratio of 0.74. The business’s fifty day moving average is $12.65 and its 200 day moving average is $10.98. TransAlta has a fifty-two week low of $5.94 and a fifty-two week high of $14.64.

TransAlta (NYSE:TAC) (TSE:TA) last released its earnings results on Thursday, February 20th. The utilities provider reported ($0.16) earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.12 by ($0.28). TransAlta had a net margin of 6.38% and a return on equity of 18.47%. The company had revenue of $484.60 million for the quarter. Sell-side analysts predict that TransAlta will post 0.41 earnings per share for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

TAC has been the topic of several research analyst reports. StockNews.com downgraded TransAlta from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday. Scotiabank downgraded TransAlta from a “sector outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 23rd. CIBC upgraded TransAlta from a “neutral” rating to an “outperformer” rating and lowered their price objective for the company from $23.00 to $19.50 in a research report on Tuesday, February 18th. Cibc World Mkts upgraded TransAlta from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 18th. Finally, Desjardins restated a “hold” rating on shares of TransAlta in a research report on Wednesday, November 6th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, TransAlta has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $19.50.

About TransAlta

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.