TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) Declares Dividend Increase – $0.28 Per Share

TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, May 9th, Zacks reports. Shareholders of record on Monday, June 10th will be given a dividend of 0.282 per share by the Wireless communications provider on Tuesday, July 2nd. This represents a $1.13 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 6.87%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, June 10th. This is an increase from TELUS’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.28.

TELUS has raised its dividend by an average of 11.9% per year over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 3 consecutive years. TELUS has a dividend payout ratio of 127.6% meaning the company cannot currently cover its dividend with earnings alone and is relying on its balance sheet to cover its dividend payments. Research analysts expect TELUS to earn $0.85 per share next year, which means the company may not be able to cover its $1.11 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 130.6%.

TELUS Stock Performance

NYSE:TU opened at $16.41 on Friday. The business’s fifty day moving average is $16.37 and its 200 day moving average is $17.24. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.35, a quick ratio of 0.62 and a current ratio of 0.67. TELUS has a 52-week low of $15.35 and a 52-week high of $20.67. The firm has a market cap of $24.22 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 38.12, a PEG ratio of 2.00 and a beta of 0.71.

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Friday, February 9th. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.18 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.17 by $0.01. TELUS had a return on equity of 7.81% and a net margin of 4.18%. The company had revenue of $5.20 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.24 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $0.17 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 2.8% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts predict that TELUS will post 0.76 EPS for the current year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts recently weighed in on TU shares. StockNews.com cut TELUS from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 26th. Scotiabank reissued a “sector perform” rating and set a $26.00 price target (down previously from $28.00) on shares of TELUS in a research report on Monday, March 25th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets decreased their price objective on shares of TELUS from $27.00 to $26.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, February 12th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and one has issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $27.72.

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.