Guardian Partners Inc. Takes Position in TransAlta Co. (NYSE:TAC)

Guardian Partners Inc. bought a new stake in TransAlta Co. (NYSE:TAC) (TSE:TA) in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor bought 79,328 shares of the utilities provider’s stock, valued at approximately $1,052,000.

Other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the company. Tobam purchased a new stake in shares of TransAlta in the fourth quarter valued at $46,000. Quantbot Technologies LP purchased a new stake in shares of TransAlta in the third quarter valued at $61,000. Ballentine Partners LLC purchased a new stake in shares of TransAlta in the fourth quarter valued at $145,000. Private Advisor Group LLC purchased a new stake in shares of TransAlta in the fourth quarter valued at $150,000. Finally, Sage Investment Counsel LLC purchased a new stake in shares of TransAlta in the fourth quarter valued at $156,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 59.00% of the company’s stock.

TransAlta Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:TAC opened at $9.76 on Friday. 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 firm has a market cap of $2.90 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.80 and a beta of 0.89. TransAlta Co. has a 1 year low of $5.94 and a 1 year high of $14.64. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $10.99 and a 200 day simple moving average of $11.16.

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

TransAlta Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, July 1st. Shareholders of record on Sunday, June 1st will be issued a dividend of $0.0458 per share. This is a positive change from TransAlta’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.04. This represents a $0.18 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.88%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, May 30th. TransAlta’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 43.90%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several analysts recently issued reports on the company. Scotiabank lowered TransAlta from a “sector outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 23rd. CIBC upgraded TransAlta from a “neutral” rating to an “outperformer” rating and cut their price objective for the stock from $23.00 to $19.50 in a report on Tuesday, February 18th. Cibc World Mkts upgraded TransAlta from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, February 18th. Finally, StockNews.com lowered 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 assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $19.50.

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.