Guardian Partners Inc. Acquires Shares of 79,328 TransAlta Co. (NYSE:TAC)

Guardian Partners Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of TransAlta Co. (NYSE:TAC) (TSE:TA) during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor acquired 79,328 shares of the utilities provider’s stock, valued at approximately $1,052,000.

Several other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in TAC. Tobam bought a new position in shares of TransAlta during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $46,000. Quantbot Technologies LP bought a new position in shares of TransAlta during the third quarter valued at approximately $61,000. Ballentine Partners LLC bought a new position in shares of TransAlta during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $145,000. Private Advisor Group LLC bought a new position in shares of TransAlta during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $150,000. Finally, Sage Investment Counsel LLC bought a new position in shares of TransAlta during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $156,000. 59.00% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

TAC has been the subject of several recent research reports. StockNews.com lowered TransAlta from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, February 21st. CIBC raised TransAlta from a “neutral” rating to an “outperformer” rating and decreased their price objective for the stock from $23.00 to $19.50 in a report on Tuesday, February 18th. Scotiabank lowered TransAlta from a “sector outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 23rd. Finally, Cibc World Mkts raised TransAlta from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report 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 company. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $19.50.

TransAlta Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE TAC opened at $9.76 on Friday. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $10.99 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $11.16. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.94, a quick ratio of 0.67 and a current ratio of 0.74. The firm has a market cap of $2.90 billion, a P/E 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.

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

TransAlta Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, July 1st. Stockholders of record on Sunday, June 1st will be given a dividend of $0.0458 per share. This represents a $0.18 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.88%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, May 30th. This is an increase from TransAlta’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.04. TransAlta’s dividend payout ratio is 43.90%.

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.