Great-West Lifeco Inc. (TSE:GWO) Receives C$52.22 Average PT from Analysts

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

Several analysts recently commented on GWO shares. Cibc World Mkts raised 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 price target on Great-West Lifeco from C$52.00 to C$54.00 and gave the stock a "market perform" rating in a research report on Friday, February 7th. TD Securities raised Great-West Lifeco from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating and increased their target price for the stock from C$49.00 to C$53.00 in a research note on Friday, February 7th. CIBC raised shares of Great-West Lifeco from a "neutral" rating to an "outperform" rating and lifted their price target for the company from C$56.00 to C$60.00 in a research note on Friday, February 7th. Finally, Barclays upped their price target on shares of Great-West Lifeco from C$45.00 to C$46.00 in a report on Monday, January 6th.

Great-West Lifeco Price Performance

GWO traded up C$0.78 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, hitting C$55.26. The stock had a trading volume of 3,898,578 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,167,555. The stock's fifty day simple moving average is C$51.07 and its 200-day simple moving average is C$48.60. The firm has a market capitalization of C$51.45 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 12.64, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.26 and a beta of 0.84. Great-West Lifeco has a 1-year low of C$38.44 and a 1-year high of C$55.32.

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Great-West Lifeco Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 31st. Shareholders of record on Monday, March 31st will be paid a $0.61 dividend. This is a positive change from Great-West Lifeco's previous quarterly dividend of $0.56. This represents a $2.44 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.42%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, March 3rd. Great-West Lifeco's payout ratio is presently 50.79%.

Insider Transactions at Great-West Lifeco

In related news, Director Charles Donald Harvey Henaire sold 26,100 shares of the business's stock in a transaction on Monday, February 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of C$53.00, for a total transaction of C$1,383,300.00. Also, Senior Officer David Martin Harney sold 562 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of C$47.55, for a total transaction of C$26,721.58. Insiders sold a total of 69,362 shares of company stock worth $3,634,696 in the last three months. 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.