West Family Investments Inc. Buys New Shares in Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE:CCI)

West Family Investments Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE:CCI) during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm purchased 1,780 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock, valued at approximately $205,000.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of CCI. Mechanics Financial Corp boosted its position in Crown Castle by 16.9% during the 4th quarter. Mechanics Financial Corp now owns 1,175 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $135,000 after acquiring an additional 170 shares in the last quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Crown Castle by 16.3% during the fourth quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 4,553,877 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $524,561,000 after purchasing an additional 639,243 shares in the last quarter. FFT Wealth Management LLC purchased a new stake in Crown Castle in the fourth quarter worth $221,000. First Trust Direct Indexing L.P. raised its holdings in Crown Castle by 84.2% in the fourth quarter. First Trust Direct Indexing L.P. now owns 12,856 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $1,481,000 after purchasing an additional 5,876 shares in the last quarter. Finally, New York Life Investment Management LLC lifted its position in Crown Castle by 69.0% during the fourth quarter. New York Life Investment Management LLC now owns 128,774 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $14,833,000 after buying an additional 52,560 shares during the period. 90.77% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

CCI has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Scotiabank reduced their target price on shares of Crown Castle from $133.00 to $118.00 and set a “sector perform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, April 18th. Wells Fargo & Company lowered their target price on shares of Crown Castle from $115.00 to $100.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Friday, April 19th. Barclays raised their price objective on shares of Crown Castle from $111.00 to $112.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, April 23rd. Royal Bank of Canada raised their price objective on shares of Crown Castle from $92.00 to $109.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 21st. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft cut their price objective on shares of Crown Castle from $110.00 to $109.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, April 22nd. Eleven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Crown Castle presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $113.29.

Crown Castle Stock Up 1.0 %

Crown Castle stock traded up $0.95 during trading hours on Friday, reaching $97.39. The stock had a trading volume of 4,101,947 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,903,015. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $102.61 and its 200-day moving average price is $105.28. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.73, a current ratio of 0.42 and a quick ratio of 0.40. Crown Castle Inc. has a 52 week low of $84.72 and a 52 week high of $119.60. The company has a market cap of $42.32 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.43, a PEG ratio of 2.54 and a beta of 0.76.

Crown Castle (NYSE:CCI) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, April 17th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.71 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.63 by ($0.92). Crown Castle had a return on equity of 21.30% and a net margin of 20.32%. The business had revenue of $1.64 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.63 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $1.91 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was down 7.4% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Crown Castle Inc. will post 6.59 EPS for the current year.

Crown Castle Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, March 28th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 15th were given a dividend of $1.565 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, March 14th. This represents a $6.26 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 6.43%. Crown Castle’s dividend payout ratio is currently 195.63%.

Crown Castle Profile

Crown Castle owns, operates and leases more than 40,000 cell towers and approximately 90,000 route miles of fiber supporting small cells and fiber solutions across every major U.S. market. This nationwide portfolio of communications infrastructure connects cities and communities to essential data, technology and wireless service – bringing information, ideas and innovations to the people and businesses that need them.