TransAlta Co. (NYSE:TAC) Announces Quarterly Dividend of $0.05

TransAlta Co. (NYSE:TAC) (TSE:TA) announced a quarterly dividend on Friday, February 21st, Wall Street Journal reports. Investors of record on Sunday, June 1st will be paid a dividend of 0.0458 per share by the utilities provider on Tuesday, July 1st. This represents a $0.18 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.68%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, May 30th. This is an increase from TransAlta’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.04.

TransAlta has raised its dividend payment by an average of 8.8% annually over the last three years. TransAlta has a payout ratio of 106.3% indicating that 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 TransAlta to earn $0.41 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.17 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 41.5%.

TransAlta Stock Down 3.6 %

NYSE:TAC traded down $0.41 on Friday, reaching $10.88. The stock had a trading volume of 1,353,669 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,049,731. The company has a current ratio of 0.74, a quick ratio of 0.67 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.94. The company has a 50-day moving average of $12.70 and a 200 day moving average of $10.94. The stock has a market cap of $3.24 billion, a P/E ratio of 29.39 and a beta of 0.83. TransAlta has a 12-month low of $5.94 and a 12-month high of $14.64.

TransAlta (NYSE:TAC) (TSE:TA) last posted its quarterly earnings data 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 during the quarter. TransAlta had a net margin of 5.72% and a return on equity of 17.46%. On average, research analysts predict that TransAlta will post 0.5 earnings per share for the current year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms have weighed in on TAC. Cibc World Mkts raised shares of TransAlta from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday. Desjardins restated a “hold” rating on shares of TransAlta in a research note on Wednesday, November 6th. Scotiabank lowered shares of TransAlta from a “sector outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 23rd. CIBC upgraded shares of TransAlta from a “neutral” rating to an “outperformer” rating and cut their target price for the company from $23.00 to $19.50 in a research note on Tuesday. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded shares of TransAlta from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, February 11th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, one has given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $19.50.

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.