Harbor Capital Advisors Inc. Purchases New Shares in Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE:CCI)

Harbor Capital Advisors Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE:CCI) during the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm purchased 398 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock, valued at approximately $47,000.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in Crown Castle by 1.2% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 56,609,569 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $5,990,991,000 after buying an additional 673,243 shares during the period. Legal & General Group Plc grew its position in shares of Crown Castle by 1.1% in the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 6,177,250 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $603,518,000 after purchasing an additional 67,072 shares during the period. National Bank of Canada FI grew its position in shares of Crown Castle by 10.7% in the second quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 4,035,561 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $387,333,000 after purchasing an additional 391,127 shares during the period. ClearBridge Investments Ltd grew its position in shares of Crown Castle by 19.4% in the first quarter. ClearBridge Investments Ltd now owns 2,632,855 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $278,635,000 after purchasing an additional 428,597 shares during the period. Finally, Cooke & Bieler LP grew its position in shares of Crown Castle by 95.8% in the second quarter. Cooke & Bieler LP now owns 2,578,932 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $251,962,000 after purchasing an additional 1,261,536 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 90.77% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. BMO Capital Markets lifted their target price on shares of Crown Castle from $105.00 to $108.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 18th. Bank of America lifted their target price on shares of Crown Castle from $110.00 to $115.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 13th. TD Cowen dropped their target price on shares of Crown Castle from $127.00 to $123.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, October 17th. Barclays raised their price target on shares of Crown Castle from $116.00 to $117.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group raised their price target on shares of Crown Castle from $105.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, September 26th. Twelve equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $116.87.

Crown Castle Price Performance

Shares of CCI stock opened at $105.88 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.43, a current ratio of 0.54 and a quick ratio of 0.54. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $113.12 and its two-hundred day moving average is $106.15. Crown Castle Inc. has a 12 month low of $92.48 and a 12 month high of $120.92. The company has a market capitalization of $46.02 billion, a PE ratio of 37.55 and a beta of 0.86.

Crown Castle (NYSE:CCI) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, October 16th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.70 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.73 by ($1.03). Crown Castle had a return on equity of 20.98% and a net margin of 18.59%. The firm had revenue of $1.65 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.64 billion. During the same period last year, the firm earned $1.77 earnings per share. Crown Castle’s revenue for the quarter was down .9% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts predict that Crown Castle Inc. will post 6.65 earnings per share for the current year.

Crown Castle Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, December 31st. Stockholders of record on Friday, December 13th will be paid a $1.565 dividend. This represents a $6.26 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 5.91%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, December 13th. Crown Castle’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 221.99%.

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.