Hartford Investment Management Co. Sells 530 Shares of Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE:CCI)

Hartford Investment Management Co. cut its stake in shares of Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE:CCI) by 1.9% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 27,248 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock after selling 530 shares during the quarter. Hartford Investment Management Co.’s holdings in Crown Castle were worth $3,232,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of CCI. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings in Crown Castle by 1.2% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 56,609,569 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $5,990,991,000 after purchasing an additional 673,243 shares during the period. Legal & General Group Plc increased its stake in shares of Crown Castle by 1.1% during the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 6,177,250 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $603,518,000 after buying an additional 67,072 shares during the period. National Bank of Canada FI raised its holdings in shares of Crown Castle by 10.7% in the second quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 4,035,561 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $387,333,000 after acquiring an additional 391,127 shares in the last quarter. ClearBridge Investments Ltd lifted its stake in Crown Castle by 19.4% in the first quarter. ClearBridge Investments Ltd now owns 2,632,855 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $278,635,000 after acquiring an additional 428,597 shares during the period. Finally, Cooke & Bieler LP lifted its stake in Crown Castle by 95.8% in the second quarter. Cooke & Bieler LP now owns 2,578,932 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $251,962,000 after acquiring an additional 1,261,536 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 90.77% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

CCI has been the subject of several recent research reports. TD Cowen reduced their price target on shares of Crown Castle from $127.00 to $123.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, October 17th. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price objective on shares of Crown Castle from $100.00 to $105.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, October 18th. BMO Capital Markets increased their target price on Crown Castle from $105.00 to $108.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 18th. Barclays boosted their price target on Crown Castle from $112.00 to $116.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 10th. Finally, UBS Group raised their price objective on Crown Castle from $103.00 to $118.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 17th. Twelve analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $116.47.

Crown Castle Stock Performance

Shares of Crown Castle stock opened at $110.68 on Thursday. The firm has a market capitalization of $48.09 billion, a P/E ratio of 34.59 and a beta of 0.85. Crown Castle Inc. has a 52 week low of $86.49 and a 52 week high of $120.92. The company has a quick ratio of 0.43, a current ratio of 0.54 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.43. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $114.02 and a 200 day moving average price of $105.30.

Crown Castle (NYSE:CCI) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 16th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.70 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.73 by ($1.03). The company had revenue of $1.65 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.64 billion. Crown Castle had a return on equity of 20.98% and a net margin of 18.59%. The company’s quarterly revenue was down .9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $1.77 EPS. Sell-side analysts expect that Crown Castle Inc. will post 6.65 EPS for the current year.

Crown Castle Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, September 30th. Shareholders of record on Friday, September 13th were paid a dividend of $1.565 per share. The ex-dividend date was Friday, September 13th. This represents a $6.26 annualized dividend and a yield of 5.66%. Crown Castle’s payout ratio is presently 195.63%.

About Crown Castle

Crown Castle owns, operates and leases more than 40,000 cell towers and approximately 90,000 route miles of fiber supporting small cells and fiber solutions across every major U.S. market. This nationwide portfolio of communications infrastructure connects cities and communities to essential data, technology and wireless service – bringing information, ideas and innovations to the people and businesses that need them.