Legal & General Group Plc Sells 31,717 Shares of TransAlta Co. (NYSE:TAC)

Legal & General Group Plc lowered its position in TransAlta Co. (NYSE:TAC) (TSE:TA) by 11.1% in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 252,905 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after selling 31,717 shares during the period. Legal & General Group Plc’s holdings in TransAlta were worth $3,575,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. Bank of Montreal Can grew its holdings in shares of TransAlta by 8.4% during the 4th quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 9,290,110 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $131,222,000 after purchasing an additional 716,139 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC grew its stake in shares of TransAlta by 79.7% during the fourth quarter. FMR LLC now owns 8,255,923 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $116,764,000 after buying an additional 3,662,900 shares during the last quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. increased its holdings in shares of TransAlta by 52.1% in the fourth quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 37,597 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $532,000 after buying an additional 12,871 shares during the period. ExodusPoint Capital Management LP bought a new stake in shares of TransAlta in the 4th quarter valued at about $1,913,000. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in TransAlta by 3.4% during the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 126,761 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $1,811,000 after acquiring an additional 4,140 shares during the period. 59.00% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

TAC has been the topic of a number of analyst reports. Jefferies Financial Group initiated coverage on TransAlta in a research note on Friday, April 11th. They issued a “hold” rating on the stock. CIBC raised shares of TransAlta from a “neutral” rating to an “outperformer” rating and decreased their target price for the stock from $23.00 to $19.50 in a research note on Tuesday, February 18th. Cibc World Mkts raised shares of TransAlta from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 18th. Scotiabank cut shares of TransAlta from a “sector outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 23rd. Finally, StockNews.com lowered shares of TransAlta from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, February 21st. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, TransAlta currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $19.50.

TransAlta Price Performance

Shares of TransAlta stock opened at $8.56 on Wednesday. The business has a 50 day moving average of $9.48 and a 200 day moving average of $11.02. TransAlta Co. has a 52 week low of $6.46 and a 52 week high of $14.64. The company has a market cap of $2.55 billion, a PE ratio of 20.88 and a beta of 0.72. The company has a quick ratio of 0.67, a current ratio of 0.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.94.

TransAlta (NYSE:TAC) (TSE:TA) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 20th. The utilities provider reported ($0.16) EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.12 by ($0.28). The company had revenue of $484.60 million during the quarter. TransAlta had a return on equity of 18.47% and a net margin of 6.38%. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that TransAlta Co. will post 0.41 earnings per share for the current year.

TransAlta Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, July 1st. Shareholders of record on Sunday, June 1st will be issued a $0.0458 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Friday, May 30th. This is a positive change from TransAlta’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.04. This represents a $0.18 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.14%. TransAlta’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 43.90%.

About TransAlta

TransAlta Corporation engages in the development, production, and sale of electric energy. It operates through Hydro, Wind and Solar, Gas, Energy Transition, and Energy Marketing segments. The Hydro segment holds interest of approximately 922 megawatts (MW) of owned hydroelectric generating capacity located in Alberta, British Columbia, and Ontario.