Northwest & Ethical Investments L.P. Has $606,000 Holdings in TransAlta Co. (NYSE:TAC)

Northwest & Ethical Investments L.P. cut its holdings in TransAlta Co. (NYSE:TAC) (TSE:TA) by 12.9% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 42,945 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after selling 6,369 shares during the period. Northwest & Ethical Investments L.P.’s holdings in TransAlta were worth $606,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the business. Signaturefd LLC grew its stake in shares of TransAlta by 5.4% in the fourth quarter. Signaturefd LLC now owns 27,627 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $391,000 after acquiring an additional 1,420 shares in the last quarter. Corient Private Wealth LLC acquired a new position in shares of TransAlta in the fourth quarter valued at about $209,000. First Eagle Investment Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of TransAlta in the fourth quarter valued at about $270,000. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. lifted its position in TransAlta by 638.9% during the fourth quarter. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. now owns 7,995,489 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $112,936,000 after purchasing an additional 6,913,431 shares during the period. Finally, Wealth High Governance Capital Ltda bought a new stake in TransAlta during the fourth quarter worth about $1,756,000. 59.00% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

TAC has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. Cibc World Mkts raised shares of TransAlta from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 18th. CIBC raised shares of TransAlta from a “neutral” rating to an “outperformer” rating and dropped their target price for the stock from $23.00 to $19.50 in a report on Tuesday, February 18th. Scotiabank cut shares of TransAlta from a “sector outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 23rd. Finally, StockNews.com cut shares of TransAlta from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, February 21st. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $19.50.

TransAlta Stock Performance

NYSE:TAC opened at $9.76 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $2.90 billion, a PE ratio of 23.80 and a beta of 0.89. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $10.99 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $11.15. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.94, a quick ratio of 0.67 and a current ratio of 0.74. TransAlta Co. has a fifty-two week low of $5.94 and a fifty-two week high of $14.64.

TransAlta (NYSE:TAC) (TSE:TA) last released its 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 firm had revenue of $484.60 million for the quarter. TransAlta had a net margin of 6.38% and a return on equity of 18.47%. Research analysts anticipate that TransAlta Co. will post 0.41 earnings per share for the current year.

TransAlta Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, July 1st. Shareholders of record on Sunday, June 1st will be given a dividend of $0.0458 per share. This represents a $0.18 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.88%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, May 30th. This is an increase from TransAlta’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.04. TransAlta’s dividend payout ratio is currently 43.90%.

TransAlta Company 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.