Citigroup Inc. Purchases 52,105 Shares of TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU)

Citigroup Inc. raised its stake in shares of TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU - Free Report) TSE: T by 15.4% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm owned 390,486 shares of the Wireless communications provider's stock after acquiring an additional 52,105 shares during the period. Citigroup Inc.'s holdings in TELUS were worth $6,558,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Fairscale Capital LLC purchased a new stake in TELUS during the second quarter valued at $27,000. Blue Trust Inc. increased its position in shares of TELUS by 60.4% during the 2nd quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 2,533 shares of the Wireless communications provider's stock valued at $41,000 after purchasing an additional 954 shares during the last quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC bought a new position in shares of TELUS in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $123,000. Trust Co. of Vermont boosted its holdings in shares of TELUS by 19.0% in the third quarter. Trust Co. of Vermont now owns 7,623 shares of the Wireless communications provider's stock worth $128,000 after buying an additional 1,218 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Unique Wealth Strategies LLC bought a new stake in TELUS during the second quarter valued at approximately $141,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 49.40% of the company's stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts have weighed in on the stock. Canaccord Genuity Group lowered shares of TELUS from a "strong-buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 6th. StockNews.com downgraded shares of TELUS from a "hold" rating to a "sell" rating in a report on Thursday, November 21st. Finally, Scotiabank raised TELUS from a "sector perform" rating to a "sector outperform" rating in a report on Monday, October 28th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, TELUS currently has an average rating of "Hold" and an average price target of $26.00.

TELUS Trading Up 0.5 %

Shares of NYSE:TU traded up $0.07 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $15.54. 1,154,687 shares of the company's stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 3,221,020. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.50, a current ratio of 0.69 and a quick ratio of 0.63. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $15.94 and a 200-day moving average price of $16.03. TELUS Co. has a 1 year low of $14.63 and a 1 year high of $19.14. The firm has a market capitalization of $23.31 billion, a P/E ratio of 33.06, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.24 and a beta of 0.75.

TELUS (NYSE:TU - Get Free Report) TSE: T last issued its earnings results on Friday, November 8th. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.28 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $0.17 by $0.11. TELUS had a net margin of 4.56% and a return on equity of 8.80%. The firm had revenue of $5.10 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.69 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.19 earnings per share. The business's revenue was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. Equities analysts expect that TELUS Co. will post 0.73 earnings per share for the current year.

TELUS Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, January 2nd. Investors of record on Wednesday, December 11th will be issued a $0.297 dividend. This is an increase from TELUS's previous quarterly dividend of $0.28. This represents a $1.19 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 7.64%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, December 11th. TELUS's payout ratio is presently 253.19%.

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.