11,000 Shares in TransAlta Co. (NYSE:TAC) Bought by Sage Investment Counsel LLC

Sage Investment Counsel LLC bought a new position in shares of TransAlta Co. (NYSE:TAC) (TSE:TA) in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm bought 11,000 shares of the utilities provider’s stock, valued at approximately $156,000.

Several other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the business. Yaupon Capital Management LP increased its holdings in TransAlta by 69.9% in the third quarter. Yaupon Capital Management LP now owns 2,685,955 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $27,840,000 after buying an additional 1,105,191 shares in the last quarter. Rubric Capital Management LP increased its holdings in TransAlta by 20.0% in the third quarter. Rubric Capital Management LP now owns 5,622,961 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $58,254,000 after buying an additional 935,803 shares in the last quarter. Artemis Investment Management LLP purchased a new position in TransAlta in the fourth quarter valued at $7,139,000. Potrero Capital Research LLC purchased a new position in TransAlta in the third quarter valued at $5,088,000. Finally, FMR LLC increased its holdings in TransAlta by 9.8% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 4,593,023 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $47,613,000 after buying an additional 408,184 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 59.00% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms have weighed in on TAC. StockNews.com cut shares of TransAlta from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, February 21st. CIBC raised shares of TransAlta from a “neutral” rating to an “outperformer” rating and cut their price objective for the company from $23.00 to $19.50 in a report on Tuesday, February 18th. Desjardins reissued a “hold” rating on shares of TransAlta in a research note on Wednesday, November 6th. Cibc World Mkts raised shares of TransAlta from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, February 18th. Finally, Scotiabank cut shares of TransAlta from a “sector outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 23rd. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, TransAlta has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $19.50.

TransAlta Stock Up 1.6 %

TAC stock opened at $10.35 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $3.08 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.23 and a beta of 0.83. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $12.37 and a 200-day simple moving average of $11.03. 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 Co. has a 52 week low of $5.94 and a 52 week high of $14.64.

TransAlta (NYSE:TAC) (TSE:TA) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 20th. The utilities provider reported ($0.16) earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.12 by ($0.28). The business had revenue of $484.60 million for the quarter. TransAlta had a return on equity of 18.47% and a net margin of 6.38%. Equities analysts forecast that TransAlta Co. will post 0.41 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

TransAlta Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, July 1st. Investors of record on Sunday, June 1st will be given a dividend of $0.0458 per share. 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 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.77%. TransAlta’s payout ratio is presently 39.02%.

TransAlta Profile

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.