Thompson Siegel & Walmsley LLC Increases Position in Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE:CCI)

Thompson Siegel & Walmsley LLC boosted its holdings in Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE:CCI) by 322.5% in the second quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 301,359 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock after purchasing an additional 230,039 shares during the period. Thompson Siegel & Walmsley LLC owned about 0.07% of Crown Castle worth $29,443,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Crown Castle by 1.2% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 56,609,569 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $5,990,991,000 after buying an additional 673,243 shares during the last quarter. Cohen & Steers Inc. boosted its stake in Crown Castle by 7.9% during the 4th quarter. Cohen & Steers Inc. now owns 11,375,567 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $1,310,559,000 after acquiring an additional 834,198 shares during the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP boosted its stake in Crown Castle by 11.1% during the 4th quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 11,260,932 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $1,297,147,000 after acquiring an additional 1,126,394 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new position in Crown Castle during the 4th quarter worth $581,503,000. Finally, Fisher Asset Management LLC increased its position in shares of Crown Castle by 16.2% in the 4th quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 4,547,032 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $523,773,000 after purchasing an additional 632,398 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 90.77% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities analysts have recently commented on CCI shares. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft increased their price target on shares of Crown Castle from $103.00 to $105.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 23rd. The Goldman Sachs Group initiated coverage on Crown Castle in a research report on Monday, July 1st. They issued a “neutral” rating and a $104.00 target price for the company. Raymond James reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $126.00 price target (up from $124.00) on shares of Crown Castle in a research report on Friday, June 14th. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their price objective on shares of Crown Castle from $100.00 to $104.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a report on Thursday, July 25th. Finally, Bank of America increased their target price on shares of Crown Castle from $110.00 to $115.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 13th. Twelve equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $113.53.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Crown Castle news, COO Michael Joseph Kavanagh sold 10,883 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, July 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $103.72, for a total value of $1,128,784.76. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer now directly owns 75,127 shares in the company, valued at $7,792,172.44. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Corporate insiders own 0.39% of the company’s stock.

Crown Castle Trading Up 1.1 %

Shares of NYSE:CCI opened at $118.85 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $51.65 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 37.14 and a beta of 0.85. Crown Castle Inc. has a 1-year low of $84.72 and a 1-year high of $120.31. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $109.77 and a 200 day moving average price of $103.82. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.04, a quick ratio of 0.43 and a current ratio of 0.43.

Crown Castle (NYSE:CCI) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 17th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.58 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.54 by $0.04. The business had revenue of $1.63 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.62 billion. Crown Castle had a return on equity of 19.20% and a net margin of 17.98%. The company’s revenue was down 12.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company posted $2.05 EPS. On average, research analysts anticipate that Crown Castle Inc. will post 6.64 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Crown Castle Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, September 30th. Shareholders of record on Friday, September 13th will be issued a dividend of $1.565 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, September 13th. This represents a $6.26 annualized dividend and a yield of 5.27%. Crown Castle’s payout ratio is presently 195.63%.

Crown Castle Profile

Crown Castle owns, operates and leases more than 40,000 cell towers and approximately 90,000 route miles of fiber supporting small cells and fiber solutions across every major U.S. market. This nationwide portfolio of communications infrastructure connects cities and communities to essential data, technology and wireless service – bringing information, ideas and innovations to the people and businesses that need them.