TransAlta Co. (NYSE:TAC) Increases Dividend to $0.04 Per Share

TransAlta Co. (NYSE:TAC) (TSE:TA) declared a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, April 30th, Wall Street Journal reports. Investors of record on Saturday, June 1st will be given a dividend of 0.0438 per share by the utilities provider on Monday, July 1st. This represents a $0.18 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.64%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, May 31st. This is an increase from TransAlta’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.04.

TransAlta has increased its dividend payment by an average of 14.2% annually over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 1 consecutive years. TransAlta has a payout ratio of 60.0% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect TransAlta to earn $0.53 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.18 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 34.0%.

TransAlta Trading Up 0.5 %

TAC opened at $6.64 on Wednesday. The firm has a market cap of $2.04 billion, a P/E ratio of 3.63 and a beta of 0.83. TransAlta has a 12 month low of $5.94 and a 12 month high of $10.40. The company has a current ratio of 0.91, a quick ratio of 0.82 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.06. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $6.55 and a 200 day moving average of $7.35.

TransAlta (NYSE:TAC) (TSE:TA) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Friday, February 23rd. The utilities provider reported ($0.20) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.10 by ($0.30). The firm had revenue of $624.00 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $305.79 million. TransAlta had a return on equity of 48.42% and a net margin of 20.05%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 26.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned ($0.45) EPS. As a group, research analysts forecast that TransAlta will post 0.51 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Separately, StockNews.com downgraded shares of TransAlta from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, January 12th.

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.