Retirement Systems of Alabama Buys 58,652 Shares of Crown Castle Inc. $CCI

Retirement Systems of Alabama grew its position in shares of Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE:CCI) by 9.1% during the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 705,712 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock after acquiring an additional 58,652 shares during the quarter. Retirement Systems of Alabama’s holdings in Crown Castle were worth $68,094,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Wilmington Savings Fund Society FSB boosted its stake in shares of Crown Castle by 0.9% during the 2nd quarter. Wilmington Savings Fund Society FSB now owns 10,274 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $1,055,000 after acquiring an additional 93 shares during the last quarter. Creative Financial Designs Inc. ADV grew its position in shares of Crown Castle by 47.8% during the second quarter. Creative Financial Designs Inc. ADV now owns 303 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $31,000 after purchasing an additional 98 shares in the last quarter. Whittier Trust Co. grew its holdings in Crown Castle by 5.6% during the 2nd quarter. Whittier Trust Co. now owns 2,046 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $210,000 after buying an additional 109 shares in the last quarter. Harbor Capital Advisors Inc. boosted its position in shares of Crown Castle by 24.0% during the third quarter. Harbor Capital Advisors Inc. now owns 599 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $58,000 after acquiring an additional 116 shares during the last quarter. Finally, NewSquare Capital LLC grew its stake in Crown Castle by 74.5% during the second quarter. NewSquare Capital LLC now owns 281 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $29,000 after acquiring an additional 120 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 90.77% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms have commented on CCI. Scotiabank dropped their price objective on shares of Crown Castle from $114.00 to $96.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, January 14th. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “sell (d)” rating on shares of Crown Castle in a research report on Monday, December 29th. BMO Capital Markets cut their price target on Crown Castle from $107.00 to $97.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Friday, January 9th. UBS Group reduced their price objective on Crown Castle from $127.00 to $116.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, January 20th. Finally, Raymond James Financial decreased their price objective on Crown Castle from $120.00 to $106.00 and set a “strong-buy” rating on the stock in a report on Friday. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nine have issued a Buy rating, seven have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Crown Castle has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $106.75.

Crown Castle Price Performance

Shares of NYSE CCI opened at $86.58 on Friday. Crown Castle Inc. has a 1-year low of $83.21 and a 1-year high of $115.76. The business’s 50 day moving average is $88.59 and its two-hundred day moving average is $95.20. The stock has a market capitalization of $37.70 billion, a P/E ratio of -8.14, a PEG ratio of 0.55 and a beta of 0.96.

Crown Castle (NYSE:CCI) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October 22nd. The real estate investment trust reported $1.12 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.04 by $0.08. The business had revenue of $1.07 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.05 billion. Crown Castle had a negative return on equity of 619.62% and a negative net margin of 95.37%.The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 4.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company earned $1.84 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Crown Castle Inc. will post 6.67 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Crown Castle Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, December 31st. Shareholders of record on Monday, December 15th were paid a dividend of $1.0625 per share. This represents a $4.25 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.9%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 15th. Crown Castle’s payout ratio is presently -39.98%.

About Crown Castle

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.