The Telstra Corporation Ltd (ASX: TLS) share price is having a pretty decent day today. At the time of writing, Telstra is up 0.28% to $3.60 a share. That's just a whisker away from Telstra's 52-week high of $3.61, which we saw earlier this month.
This follows a very decent few months for Telstra. Since reaching a new all-time low of $2.66 a share back in October last year, Telstra is up almost 34% from those lows on today's pricing. It's also up 4.66% over the past month, and up 19.3% year to date.
So what's gone the telco's way in 2021 so far?
Well, Telstra shares seemed to get a bit of a boost when the company announced a structural separation plan back in late March. The company intends to split itself into 4 separate regulatory and legal divisions by the end of the year, all still trading under the Telstra umbrella.
These divisions will be titled InfraCo Towers, InfraCo Fixed, ServeCo and Telstra International. Each one will house a separate division of Telstra's business, which might help to unlock value in some of Telstra's infrastructure assets.
There was also speculation last year that Telstra would be forced to cut its dividend in 2021, due to the company's earnings payout policy of returning between 70-90% of underlying earnings. This was looking hairy last year, as the company reported that its underlying earnings had fallen 9.7% in FY2020 compared to FY2019. However, in October, Telstra all but guaranteed to keep its dividends steady at 16 cents per share in 2021. It also stated that the board was "acutely aware of the importance of the dividend to shareholders". This may have also helped Telstra shares recover in the months since.
So where to from here for Telstra?
Is the Telstra share price a buy today?
With Telstra straddling its 52-week high today, you might be wondering if the company is still a buy today. Well, one broker who thinks it might be is Goldman Sachs. Goldman reiterated its buy rating on Telstra shares earlier this month, with a 12-moth price target of $4 per share. That implies an upside of roughly 12% on current pricing.
Goldman is bullish on Telstra partially due to its restructuring plans. It also feels that Telstra will be able to comfortably retain its 16 cents per share annual dividend going forward.
