William Iv Maner Buys 700 Shares of Southern First Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:SFST) Stock

Southern First Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:SFST) Director William Iv Maner purchased 700 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, May 14th. The shares were acquired at an average cost of $36.15 per share, for a total transaction of $25,305.00. Following the completion of the acquisition, the director now owns 2,700 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $97,605. This represents a 35.00% increase in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website.

Southern First Bancshares Trading Down 1.2%

Shares of NASDAQ:SFST opened at $37.01 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $302.33 million, a P/E ratio of 19.28 and a beta of 0.77. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.81, a current ratio of 1.09 and a quick ratio of 1.09. Southern First Bancshares, Inc. has a 1 year low of $25.81 and a 1 year high of $45.91. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $33.56 and its 200-day moving average price is $36.94.

Southern First Bancshares (NASDAQ:SFST) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 22nd. The bank reported $0.65 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.61 by $0.04. The firm had revenue of $26.50 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $26.56 million. Southern First Bancshares had a return on equity of 4.85% and a net margin of 7.28%. Sell-side analysts expect that Southern First Bancshares, Inc. will post 1.85 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of SFST. Barclays PLC lifted its holdings in shares of Southern First Bancshares by 47.2% during the third quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 25,303 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $862,000 after purchasing an additional 8,111 shares in the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted its holdings in Southern First Bancshares by 136.9% in the third quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 14,518 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $495,000 after acquiring an additional 8,390 shares during the period. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. lifted its holdings in Southern First Bancshares by 43.4% in the fourth quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 44,643 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $1,775,000 after acquiring an additional 13,503 shares during the period. Sheets Smith Wealth Management lifted its holdings in Southern First Bancshares by 3.3% in the fourth quarter. Sheets Smith Wealth Management now owns 15,191 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $604,000 after acquiring an additional 490 shares during the period. Finally, SG Americas Securities LLC lifted its holdings in Southern First Bancshares by 35.8% in the fourth quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 4,041 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $161,000 after acquiring an additional 1,065 shares during the period. 75.00% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

About Southern First Bancshares

Southern First Bancshares, Inc operates as the bank holding company for Southern First Bank that provides commercial, consumer, and mortgage loans to the general public in South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia. The company accepts various deposit products that include checking accounts, commercial checking accounts, and savings accounts, as well as other time deposits, including daily money market accounts and long-term certificates of deposit.