Gateway Investment Advisers LLC Decreases Position in Crown Castle Inc. $CCI

Gateway Investment Advisers LLC cut its stake in shares of Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE:CCI) by 3.9% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 139,565 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock after selling 5,639 shares during the quarter. Gateway Investment Advisers LLC’s holdings in Crown Castle were worth $12,403,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Indivisible Partners purchased a new stake in Crown Castle during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $318,000. S Bank Fund Management Ltd raised its position in Crown Castle by 40.1% during the fourth quarter. S Bank Fund Management Ltd now owns 34,950 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $3,106,000 after purchasing an additional 10,000 shares during the period. Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co. Ltd. raised its position in Crown Castle by 5.0% during the fourth quarter. Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 916,392 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $81,284,000 after purchasing an additional 43,276 shares during the period. Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management Company Ltd raised its position in Crown Castle by 5.0% during the fourth quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management Company Ltd now owns 58,894 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $5,234,000 after purchasing an additional 2,805 shares during the period. Finally, Acorn Financial Advisory Services Inc. ADV raised its position in Crown Castle by 2.3% during the fourth quarter. Acorn Financial Advisory Services Inc. ADV now owns 10,888 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $968,000 after purchasing an additional 244 shares during the period. 90.77% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Activity at Crown Castle

In related news, EVP Edward B. Adams, Jr. sold 4,650 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $86.34, for a total value of $401,481.00. Following the transaction, the executive vice president owned 25,183 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,174,300.22. This represents a 15.59% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, VP Robert Sean Collins sold 3,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $87.49, for a total value of $262,470.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president directly owned 5,800 shares in the company, valued at approximately $507,442. This trade represents a 34.09% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. 0.09% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts have issued reports on the company. Scotiabank decreased their price objective on Crown Castle from $94.00 to $91.00 and set a “sector perform” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, April 7th. Wolfe Research cut their target price on Crown Castle from $114.00 to $94.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, April 6th. KeyCorp upped their target price on Crown Castle from $98.00 to $105.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, April 23rd. Zacks Research raised Crown Castle from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, March 4th. Finally, UBS Group cut their target price on Crown Castle from $116.00 to $105.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, February 5th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eight have issued a Buy rating and eleven have given a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $99.39.

Crown Castle Stock Performance

CCI opened at $91.04 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $39.73 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 37.62, a P/E/G ratio of 0.46 and a beta of 0.93. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $85.93 and its 200-day moving average price is $87.99. Crown Castle Inc. has a one year low of $75.96 and a one year high of $115.76.

Crown Castle (NYSE:CCI) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, April 22nd. The real estate investment trust reported $1.02 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.47 by $0.55. The firm had revenue of $1.01 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $995.42 million. Crown Castle had a negative return on equity of 64.64% and a net margin of 25.13%.The company’s quarterly revenue was down 4.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $1.10 earnings per share. Crown Castle has set its FY 2026 guidance at 4.380-4.490 EPS. As a group, analysts predict that Crown Castle Inc. will post 4.22 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Crown Castle Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, March 31st. Investors of record on Friday, March 13th were paid a $1.0625 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, March 13th. This represents a $4.25 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.7%. Crown Castle’s dividend payout ratio is 175.62%.

Crown Castle Profile

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.