51,539 Shares in TransAlta Co. (NYSE:TAC) Bought by A&I Financial Services LLC

A&I Financial Services LLC bought a new stake in TransAlta Co. (NYSE:TAC) (TSE:TA) during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund bought 51,539 shares of the utilities provider’s stock, valued at approximately $729,000. TransAlta makes up 0.7% of A&I Financial Services LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 24th largest position.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of TransAlta by 2.1% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 122,621 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $1,277,000 after buying an additional 2,524 shares during the period. Tobam bought a new position in TransAlta during the fourth quarter worth about $46,000. Creative Planning grew its stake in TransAlta by 6.9% in the third quarter. Creative Planning now owns 53,803 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $557,000 after acquiring an additional 3,492 shares during the period. Van ECK Associates Corp increased its holdings in shares of TransAlta by 7.5% in the fourth quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 79,957 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $1,131,000 after acquiring an additional 5,593 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Quantbot Technologies LP acquired a new stake in shares of TransAlta during the third quarter worth about $61,000. Institutional investors own 59.00% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts recently issued reports on TAC shares. Desjardins reiterated a “hold” rating on shares of TransAlta in a research report on Wednesday, November 6th. Scotiabank cut shares of TransAlta from a “sector outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 23rd. Cibc World Mkts upgraded TransAlta from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, February 18th. StockNews.com lowered TransAlta from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, February 21st. Finally, CIBC upgraded 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, February 18th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, TransAlta currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $19.50.

TransAlta Trading Down 5.4 %

TransAlta stock opened at $10.16 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $3.02 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.79 and a beta of 0.83. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $12.45 and a 200-day moving average of $11.04. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.94, a current ratio of 0.74 and a quick ratio of 0.67. TransAlta Co. has a one year low of $5.94 and a one year high of $14.64.

TransAlta (NYSE:TAC) (TSE:TA) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 20th. The utilities provider reported ($0.16) EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.12 by ($0.28). The company 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%. On average, equities analysts expect that TransAlta Co. will post 0.41 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

TransAlta Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, July 1st. Investors of record on Sunday, June 1st will be issued a dividend of $0.0458 per share. This represents a $0.18 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.80%. This is an increase from TransAlta’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.04. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, May 30th. 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.