Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE:CCI) Shares Bought by Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc.

Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. lifted its position in shares of Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE:CCI) by 1.5% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 129,696 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock after buying an additional 1,957 shares during the period. Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc.’s holdings in Crown Castle were worth $15,386,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other large investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Crown Castle by 1.2% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 56,609,569 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $5,990,991,000 after acquiring an additional 673,243 shares in the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc raised its position in 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 lifted its stake in shares of Crown Castle by 10.7% during the second quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 4,035,561 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $387,333,000 after purchasing an additional 391,127 shares in the last quarter. ClearBridge Investments Ltd lifted its stake in shares of Crown Castle by 19.4% during the first quarter. ClearBridge Investments Ltd now owns 2,632,855 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $278,635,000 after purchasing an additional 428,597 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Cooke & Bieler LP boosted 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 worth $251,962,000 after buying an additional 1,261,536 shares during the period. 90.77% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms recently commented on CCI. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price target on Crown Castle from $115.00 to $124.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, September 23rd. BMO Capital Markets upped 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 note on Thursday, July 18th. UBS Group raised their price target on shares of Crown Castle from $103.00 to $118.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, October 17th. Jefferies Financial Group boosted their price objective on shares of Crown Castle from $123.00 to $127.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, October 17th. Finally, Citigroup set a $128.00 target price on Crown Castle in a research note on Thursday, October 17th. Twelve equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Crown Castle presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $116.87.

Crown Castle Stock Performance

Shares of CCI opened at $102.76 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.43, a current ratio of 0.54 and a quick ratio of 0.54. Crown Castle Inc. has a 12-month low of $92.48 and a 12-month high of $120.92. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $112.74 and its 200 day moving average price is $106.43. The stock has a market capitalization of $44.66 billion, a PE ratio of 36.44 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 net margin of 18.59% and a return on equity of 20.98%. The company had revenue of $1.65 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.64 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $1.77 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was down .9% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts forecast that Crown Castle Inc. will post 6.66 EPS for the current year.

Crown Castle Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, December 31st. Stockholders of record on Friday, December 13th will be given a dividend of $1.565 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, December 13th. This represents a $6.26 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 6.09%. Crown Castle’s dividend payout ratio is currently 221.99%.

About Crown Castle

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.