TransAlta Co. (NYSE:TAC) Declares Quarterly Dividend of $0.04

TransAlta Co. (NYSE:TAC) (TSE:TA) announced a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, April 30th, Wall Street Journal reports. Shareholders 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 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.64%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, May 31st. This is a boost from TransAlta’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.04.

TransAlta has increased its dividend by an average of 14.2% annually over the last three years and has raised its dividend every year for the last 1 years. TransAlta has a dividend payout ratio of 60.0% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. 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 Price Performance

NYSE TAC traded up $0.04 during trading on Tuesday, reaching $6.64. 545,996 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 722,410. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.06, a quick ratio of 0.82 and a current ratio of 0.91. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $6.56 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $7.36. The company has a market cap of $2.04 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 3.61 and a beta of 0.83. TransAlta has a 1-year low of $5.94 and a 1-year high of $10.40.

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

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Separately, StockNews.com cut shares of TransAlta from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report 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.