Community Bank & Trust Waco Texas Trims Stock Holdings in Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE:CCI)

Community Bank & Trust Waco Texas reduced its stake in Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE:CCI) by 10.2% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 8,147 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock after selling 927 shares during the quarter. Community Bank & Trust Waco Texas’ holdings in Crown Castle were worth $938,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the stock. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company lifted its position in Crown Castle by 42.8% during the third quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 7,083,665 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $651,910,000 after buying an additional 2,121,603 shares during the period. Barclays PLC lifted its position in Crown Castle by 217.9% during the third quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 3,058,133 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $281,439,000 after buying an additional 2,096,272 shares during the period. Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its position in Crown Castle by 21.9% during the third quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 10,134,538 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $932,682,000 after buying an additional 1,818,910 shares during the period. FMR LLC lifted its position in Crown Castle by 14.3% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 11,936,611 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $1,098,526,000 after buying an additional 1,496,330 shares during the period. Finally, Morgan Stanley lifted its position in Crown Castle by 8.9% during the third quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 13,078,861 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $1,203,648,000 after buying an additional 1,064,382 shares during the period. 90.77% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts have recently commented on CCI shares. BMO Capital Markets cut their price objective on Crown Castle from $110.00 to $105.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, April 18th. Barclays raised their price objective on Crown Castle from $111.00 to $112.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday. Jefferies Financial Group cut their price objective on Crown Castle from $126.00 to $123.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, April 18th. Wells Fargo & Company cut their price objective on Crown Castle from $115.00 to $100.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, April 19th. Finally, Argus downgraded Crown Castle from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, April 19th. Eleven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $113.29.

Crown Castle Stock Performance

NYSE:CCI traded down $0.21 during trading hours on Wednesday, reaching $95.26. 830,723 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,812,965. The company has a quick ratio of 0.40, a current ratio of 0.42 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.73. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $104.43 and a 200-day simple moving average of $105.40. Crown Castle Inc. has a 52 week low of $84.72 and a 52 week high of $125.41. The stock has a market capitalization of $41.39 billion, a P/E ratio of 29.83, a P/E/G ratio of 2.53 and a beta of 0.73.

Crown Castle (NYSE:CCI) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, April 17th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.71 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.63 by ($0.92). The company had revenue of $1.64 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.63 billion. Crown Castle had a return on equity of 21.30% and a net margin of 20.32%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 7.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business posted $1.91 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Crown Castle Inc. will post 6.59 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Crown Castle Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, March 28th. Investors of record on Friday, March 15th were issued a $1.565 dividend. This represents a $6.26 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 6.57%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, March 14th. Crown Castle’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 195.63%.

About Crown Castle

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.