PCJ Investment Counsel Ltd. Purchases Shares of 95,380 TELUS Corporation (NYSE:TU)

Key Points

• PCJ Investment Counsel Ltd. has acquired 95,380 shares of TELUS Corporation, valued at approximately $1.368 million, as part of their investment strategy during the 1st quarter.
• TELUS has reported a quarterly earnings miss, with an EPS of $0.16 compared to the consensus estimate of $0.17, although it did achieve revenue of $3.74 billion, exceeding analyst expectations.
• The company has increased its quarterly dividend to $0.3019 per share, representing a 7.5% yield, effective for stockholders of record on September 10th.

PCJ Investment Counsel Ltd. purchased a new stake in TELUS Corporation (NYSE:TU - Free Report) TSE: T during the 1st quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor purchased 95,380 shares of the Wireless communications provider's stock, valued at approximately $1,368,000.

Other hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Farther Finance Advisors LLC increased its stake in TELUS by 71.9% in the first quarter. Farther Finance Advisors LLC now owns 2,321 shares of the Wireless communications provider's stock valued at $33,000 after purchasing an additional 971 shares during the last quarter. NBC Securities Inc. grew its position in shares of TELUS by 112,425.0% during the first quarter. NBC Securities Inc. now owns 4,501 shares of the Wireless communications provider's stock worth $64,000 after acquiring an additional 4,497 shares during the last quarter. Optiver Holding B.V. purchased a new position in shares of TELUS during the fourth quarter worth approximately $120,000. Trust Co. of Vermont grew its position in shares of TELUS by 10.5% during the first quarter. Trust Co. of Vermont now owns 8,423 shares of the Wireless communications provider's stock worth $121,000 after acquiring an additional 800 shares during the last quarter. Finally, TD Private Client Wealth LLC grew its position in shares of TELUS by 175.4% during the first quarter. TD Private Client Wealth LLC now owns 10,400 shares of the Wireless communications provider's stock worth $149,000 after acquiring an additional 6,624 shares during the last quarter. 49.40% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on TU. National Bankshares restated a "sector perform" rating on shares of TELUS in a research report on Monday, May 12th. Canaccord Genuity Group raised their target price on shares of TELUS from $20.25 to $21.50 and gave the stock a "hold" rating in a research report on Monday, May 12th. Finally, Scotiabank reiterated an "outperform" rating on shares of TELUS in a research report on Tuesday, July 15th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, TELUS currently has an average rating of "Hold" and an average price target of $21.50.

TELUS Stock Performance

NYSE:TU opened at $16.07 on Friday. The firm's fifty day moving average price is $16.22 and its 200 day moving average price is $15.42. TELUS Corporation has a 1-year low of $13.24 and a 1-year high of $17.26. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.72, a current ratio of 0.86 and a quick ratio of 0.59. The firm has a market cap of $24.50 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 34.92, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.40 and a beta of 0.73.

TELUS (NYSE:TU - Get Free Report) TSE: T last released its earnings results on Friday, August 1st. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.16 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts' consensus estimates of $0.17 by ($0.01). TELUS had a net margin of 4.67% and a return on equity of 9.10%. The business had revenue of $3.74 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.63 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $0.25 EPS. TELUS's revenue was up 2.2% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, sell-side analysts expect that TELUS Corporation will post 0.71 EPS for the current year.

TELUS Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, October 1st. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, September 10th will be paid a dividend of $0.3019 per share. This is a boost from TELUS's previous quarterly dividend of $0.30. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, September 10th. This represents a $1.21 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 7.5%. TELUS's dividend payout ratio is presently 263.04%.

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.

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