Great-West Lifeco Inc. (TSE:GWO) Receives Average Recommendation of "Hold" from Brokerages

Great-West Lifeco Inc. (TSE:GWO - Get Free Report) has been assigned an average recommendation of "Hold" from the ten ratings firms that are currently covering the company, Marketbeat.com reports. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, five have assigned a hold recommendation, three have issued a buy recommendation and one has given a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average twelve-month target price among brokers that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is C$52.22.

GWO has been the subject of several research analyst reports. Desjardins raised their target price on Great-West Lifeco from C$49.00 to C$53.00 and gave the company a "hold" rating in a research report on Friday, February 7th. CIBC raised shares of Great-West Lifeco from a "neutral" rating to an "outperform" rating and boosted their price target for the stock from C$56.00 to C$60.00 in a research note on Friday, February 7th. Royal Bank of Canada upped their price target 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 report on Friday, February 7th. Barclays lifted their price objective on Great-West Lifeco from C$45.00 to C$46.00 in a report on Monday, January 6th. Finally, Cibc World Mkts raised Great-West Lifeco from a "hold" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a research note on Thursday, February 6th.

Great-West Lifeco Trading Up 0.3 %

Shares of GWO traded up C$0.17 during trading hours on Friday, reaching C$53.30. 5,834,184 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 2,687,295. Great-West Lifeco has a 52 week low of C$38.44 and a 52 week high of C$53.95. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of C$48.62 and a 200 day simple moving average of C$47.31. The company has a market cap of C$49.62 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 12.19, a PEG ratio of 2.26 and a beta of 0.84.

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Great-West Lifeco Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 31st. Shareholders of record on Monday, March 31st will be issued a $0.61 dividend. This represents a $2.44 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 4.58%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, March 3rd. This is a boost from Great-West Lifeco's previous quarterly dividend of $0.56. Great-West Lifeco's dividend payout ratio is 50.79%.

Insider Activity

In other Great-West Lifeco news, Director Charles Donald Harvey Henaire sold 26,100 shares of Great-West Lifeco stock in a transaction on Monday, February 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of C$53.00, for a total value of C$1,383,300.00. Also, Director Christine Marie Moritz sold 4,700 shares of the company's stock in a transaction on Friday, February 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of C$52.09, for a total value of C$244,827.70. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 60,062 shares of company stock worth $3,149,764. Insiders own 70.70% of the company's stock.

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.