Miller Howard Investments Inc. NY Buys New Position in Crown Castle Inc. $CCI

Miller Howard Investments Inc. NY bought a new position in Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE:CCI) in the third quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund bought 26,716 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock, valued at approximately $2,578,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in shares of Crown Castle by 0.7% during the 2nd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 69,290,381 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $7,118,201,000 after buying an additional 449,776 shares during the period. State Street Corp raised its holdings in Crown Castle by 0.5% during the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 21,461,578 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $2,204,748,000 after buying an additional 110,050 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new stake in shares of Crown Castle during the second quarter worth about $629,431,000. Bank of America Corp DE raised its holdings in shares of Crown Castle by 2.2% in the 2nd quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 5,534,066 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $568,515,000 after acquiring an additional 117,904 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Lazard Asset Management LLC increased its holdings in Crown Castle by 3,051.5% during the 2nd quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC now owns 5,472,810 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $562,221,000 after purchasing an additional 5,299,155 shares in the last quarter. 90.77% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Insider Activity

In other news, EVP Daniel K. Schlanger sold 30,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, October 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $98.08, for a total value of $2,942,400.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president directly owned 65,571 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $6,431,203.68. This trade represents a 31.39% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. 0.10% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Crown Castle Stock Performance

CCI stock opened at $83.68 on Friday. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $89.19 and a 200-day moving average of $96.20. Crown Castle Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $83.21 and a fifty-two week high of $115.76. The company has a market capitalization of $36.44 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -7.87, a PEG ratio of 0.54 and a beta of 0.96.

Crown Castle (NYSE:CCI) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October 22nd. The real estate investment trust reported $1.12 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.04 by $0.08. The business had revenue of $1.07 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.05 billion. Crown Castle had a negative net margin of 95.37% and a negative return on equity of 619.62%. The company’s revenue was down 4.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $1.84 earnings per share. Crown Castle has set its FY 2025 guidance at 4.230-4.350 EPS. Equities analysts predict that Crown Castle Inc. will post 6.67 EPS for the current year.

Crown Castle Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, December 31st. Shareholders of record on Monday, December 15th were issued a dividend of $1.0625 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 15th. This represents a $4.25 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 5.1%. Crown Castle’s payout ratio is presently -39.98%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several brokerages have recently commented on CCI. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their target price on shares of Crown Castle from $115.00 to $117.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, October 23rd. BMO Capital Markets cut their price objective on Crown Castle from $114.00 to $107.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, December 3rd. UBS Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $127.00 target price on shares of Crown Castle in a research report on Wednesday, December 10th. Royal Bank Of Canada set a $112.00 price target on shares of Crown Castle and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 1st. Finally, KeyCorp reduced their price target on shares of Crown Castle from $125.00 to $120.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, September 17th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nine have issued a Buy rating, eight have assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $110.33.

Crown Castle Profile

Crown Castle is a U.S.-focused communications infrastructure company organized as a real estate investment trust (REIT) that owns, operates and leases shared wireless infrastructure. Its primary business consists of providing tower-based site leases, small cell networks and fiber solutions that support mobile voice and data transmission for wireless carriers, cable companies and other enterprise customers. The company’s assets are positioned to enable network coverage and capacity, including the densification projects associated with 4G LTE and 5G deployments.

Its product and service offerings include ground-based tower sites that host multiple wireless operators, distributed small cell nodes and associated fiber backhaul used to connect sites into carrier networks, and site development and maintenance services.