TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) Shares Acquired by Bank of Nova Scotia Trust Co.

Bank of Nova Scotia Trust Co. boosted its holdings in TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) by 1.7% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 2,050,077 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 33,782 shares during the period. TELUS comprises about 2.9% of Bank of Nova Scotia Trust Co.’s portfolio, making the stock its 7th largest holding. Bank of Nova Scotia Trust Co. owned 0.14% of TELUS worth $27,799,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Bank of Nova Scotia increased its position in shares of TELUS by 28.3% during the 4th quarter. Bank of Nova Scotia now owns 30,219,141 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $409,662,000 after purchasing an additional 6,659,564 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new position in TELUS during the fourth quarter worth $70,212,000. Mufg Securities Canada LTD. raised its position in TELUS by 68.9% during the fourth quarter. Mufg Securities Canada LTD. now owns 2,236,163 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $30,299,000 after acquiring an additional 912,277 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in shares of TELUS by 3.6% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 25,801,407 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $349,841,000 after acquiring an additional 903,921 shares during the period. Finally, Guardian Partners Inc. acquired a new position in shares of TELUS during the 4th quarter worth about $12,325,000. 49.40% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages have weighed in on TU. Cormark downgraded TELUS from a “moderate buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 4th. StockNews.com raised TELUS from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Monday, February 10th. Finally, Bank of America downgraded TELUS from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, March 21st. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold”.

TELUS Stock Performance

NYSE:TU opened at $15.00 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 0.68, a quick ratio of 0.61 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.52. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $14.87 and a 200 day simple moving average of $14.95. TELUS Co. has a 1-year low of $13.24 and a 1-year high of $17.27. The stock has a market cap of $22.70 billion, a P/E ratio of 30.60, a PEG ratio of 5.18 and a beta of 0.70.

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, February 13th. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.18 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.16 by $0.02. TELUS had a return on equity of 9.07% and a net margin of 4.85%. The company had revenue of $3.85 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.64 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $0.10 earnings per share. Research analysts anticipate that TELUS Co. will post 0.71 earnings per share for the current year.

TELUS Cuts Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, April 1st. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, March 11th were given a $0.2829 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, March 11th. This represents a $1.13 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 7.55%. TELUS’s payout ratio is 226.53%.

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.