Strs Ohio Increases Position in Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE:CCI)

Strs Ohio grew its holdings in Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE:CCI) by 7.7% in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 183,887 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock after buying an additional 13,098 shares during the quarter. Strs Ohio’s holdings in Crown Castle were worth $21,181,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the business. Bay Colony Advisory Group Inc d b a Bay Colony Advisors grew its stake in shares of Crown Castle by 6.0% in the fourth quarter. Bay Colony Advisory Group Inc d b a Bay Colony Advisors now owns 7,107 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $819,000 after acquiring an additional 404 shares in the last quarter. Lecap Asset Management Ltd. acquired a new position in shares of Crown Castle during the fourth quarter worth $656,000. Louisiana State Employees Retirement System acquired a new position in shares of Crown Castle during the fourth quarter worth $3,018,000. Consolidated Portfolio Review Corp grew its stake in shares of Crown Castle by 6.8% during the fourth quarter. Consolidated Portfolio Review Corp now owns 8,764 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $1,010,000 after purchasing an additional 560 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Aquila Investment Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Crown Castle by 11.1% during the fourth quarter. Aquila Investment Management LLC now owns 20,000 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $2,304,000 after purchasing an additional 2,000 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 90.77% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts recently commented on the stock. BMO Capital Markets upgraded shares of Crown Castle from an “underperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $107.00 to $110.00 in a research note on Friday, January 19th. Royal Bank of Canada upped their price objective on shares of Crown Castle from $92.00 to $109.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 21st. Nine analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $118.93.

Crown Castle Price Performance

Shares of CCI opened at $95.62 on Tuesday. Crown Castle Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $84.72 and a fifty-two week high of $134.09. The company has a market capitalization of $41.55 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.64, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.57 and a beta of 0.73. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $105.96 and a 200-day simple moving average of $105.22. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.46, a quick ratio of 0.40 and a current ratio of 0.40.

Crown Castle Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, March 28th. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 15th were paid a dividend of $1.565 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, March 14th. This represents a $6.26 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 6.55%. Crown Castle’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 180.92%.

Crown Castle Company 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.