TransAlta Co. (NYSE:TAC) Announces Dividend Increase – $0.05 Per Share

TransAlta Co. (NYSE:TAC) (TSE:TA) declared a quarterly dividend on Friday, February 21st, Wall Street Journal reports. Stockholders of record on Sunday, June 1st will be paid a dividend of 0.0458 per share by the utilities provider on Tuesday, July 1st. This represents a $0.18 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.68%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, May 30th. This is a boost from TransAlta’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.04.

TransAlta has increased its dividend payment by an average of 8.8% per year over the last three years. TransAlta has a dividend payout ratio of 106.3% indicating that the company cannot currently cover its dividend with earnings alone and is relying on its balance sheet to cover its dividend payments. Equities analysts expect TransAlta to earn $0.44 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.17 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 38.6%.

TransAlta Stock Down 3.6 %

TAC stock opened at $10.88 on Friday. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $12.65 and its 200 day simple moving average is $10.96. The company has a quick ratio of 0.67, a current ratio of 0.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.94. The company has a market cap of $3.24 billion, a PE ratio of 26.53 and a beta of 0.83. TransAlta has a twelve month low of $5.94 and a twelve month high of $14.64.

TransAlta (NYSE:TAC) (TSE:TA) last announced its quarterly earnings data 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). The firm had revenue of $484.60 million for the quarter. TransAlta had a return on equity of 18.47% and a net margin of 6.38%. On average, research analysts anticipate that TransAlta will post 0.41 earnings per share for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

TAC has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Desjardins restated a “hold” rating on shares of TransAlta in a research note on Wednesday, November 6th. StockNews.com cut shares of TransAlta from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday. Cibc World Mkts raised TransAlta from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday. CIBC raised TransAlta from a “neutral” rating to an “outperformer” rating and dropped their target price for the stock from $23.00 to $19.50 in a report on Tuesday. Finally, Scotiabank lowered TransAlta from a “sector outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 23rd. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $19.50.

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.