Eastern Bankshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:EBC) Plans $0.12 Quarterly Dividend

Eastern Bankshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:EBC) announced a quarterly dividend on Friday, January 24th,Wall Street Journal reports. Shareholders of record on Monday, March 3rd will be given a dividend of 0.12 per share on Friday, March 14th. This represents a $0.48 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.69%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, March 3rd.

Eastern Bankshares has raised its dividend by an average of 14.5% per year over the last three years. Eastern Bankshares has a dividend payout ratio of 32.2% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect Eastern Bankshares to earn $1.31 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.48 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 36.6%.

Eastern Bankshares Stock Performance

EBC traded up $0.25 during trading on Friday, hitting $17.85. The stock had a trading volume of 1,378,238 shares, compared to its average volume of 965,715. Eastern Bankshares has a twelve month low of $12.22 and a twelve month high of $19.40. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.83 billion, a P/E ratio of 7.69 and a beta of 0.94. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $17.76 and its 200 day moving average price is $16.81.

Eastern Bankshares (NASDAQ:EBC) last released its earnings results on Thursday, January 23rd. The company reported $0.34 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.29 by $0.05. Eastern Bankshares had a return on equity of 4.49% and a net margin of 38.00%. As a group, equities analysts expect that Eastern Bankshares will post 0.98 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Eastern Bankshares

In other Eastern Bankshares news, Director Deborah C. Jackson sold 5,713 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $18.56, for a total transaction of $106,033.28. Following the transaction, the director now owns 67,284 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,248,791.04. This trade represents a 7.83 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. 1.15% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Separately, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods lifted their price objective on Eastern Bankshares from $19.00 to $21.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 4th.

About Eastern Bankshares

Eastern Bankshares, Inc operates as the bank holding company for Eastern Bank that provides banking products and services primarily to retail, commercial, and small business customers. The company provides deposit accounts, interest checking accounts, money market accounts, savings accounts, and time certificates of deposit accounts.