Orion Portfolio Solutions LLC Reduces Stake in TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU)

Orion Portfolio Solutions LLC reduced its stake in shares of TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) by 15.5% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 12,909 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock after selling 2,361 shares during the period. Orion Portfolio Solutions LLC’s holdings in TELUS were worth $175,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other large investors also recently modified their holdings of TU. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in TELUS in the fourth quarter worth $70,212,000. Mufg Securities Canada LTD. grew its stake in shares of TELUS by 68.9% during the 4th 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 during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings in TELUS by 3.6% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 25,801,407 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $349,841,000 after acquiring an additional 903,921 shares during the last quarter. Guardian Partners Inc. purchased a new stake in TELUS during the fourth quarter valued at about $12,325,000. Finally, Centre Asset Management LLC bought a new position in TELUS during the fourth quarter worth about $6,946,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 49.40% of the company’s stock.

TELUS Stock Up 2.4 %

TU opened at $14.41 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.52, a current ratio of 0.68 and a quick ratio of 0.61. TELUS Co. has a one year low of $13.24 and a one year high of $17.27. The firm has a market capitalization of $21.82 billion, a P/E ratio of 29.41, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 5.18 and a beta of 0.70. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $14.84 and a 200-day moving average price of $15.01.

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) last announced 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. The business had revenue of $3.85 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.64 billion. TELUS had a return on equity of 9.07% and a net margin of 4.85%. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $0.10 EPS. Equities research analysts expect that TELUS Co. will post 0.71 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

TELUS Cuts Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, April 1st. Investors of record on Tuesday, March 11th were paid a $0.2829 dividend. This represents a $1.13 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 7.85%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, March 11th. TELUS’s dividend payout ratio is currently 226.53%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

TU has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Bank of America cut shares of TELUS from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, March 21st. National Bank Financial lowered TELUS from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a report on Friday, December 13th. Cormark lowered TELUS from a “moderate buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 4th. StockNews.com upgraded TELUS from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, February 10th. Finally, Morgan Stanley started coverage on TELUS in a research report on Monday, December 16th. They set an “equal weight” rating on the stock. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold”.

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.