BankUnited (NYSE:BKU) Stock Bumped Down to “Hold” by Wells Fargo & Company

Wells Fargo & Company lowered shares of BankUnited (NYSE:BKU) from a strong-buy rating to a hold rating in a research report released on Tuesday,Zacks reports.

Other research analysts have also recently issued research reports about the company. Barclays cut their price objective on BankUnited from $50.00 to $48.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, August 3rd. Citigroup reaffirmed a “sell” rating on shares of BankUnited in a research note on Tuesday, September 22nd. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “buy (b)” rating on shares of BankUnited in a report on Wednesday, August 26th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods reduced their price objective on shares of BankUnited from $51.00 to $49.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, August 3rd. Finally, Wall Street Zen raised shares of BankUnited from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Saturday, July 25th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have issued a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $50.91.

BankUnited Stock Performance

NYSE BKU opened at $42.16 on Tuesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $3.00 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 11.55 and a beta of 1.17. The business’s 50 day moving average is $45.80 and its two-hundred day moving average is $46.45. BankUnited has a 12-month low of $35.10 and a 12-month high of $52.11. The company has a current ratio of 0.82, a quick ratio of 0.82 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54.

BankUnited (NYSE:BKU) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 22nd. The financial services provider reported $0.97 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.00 by ($0.03). BankUnited had a net margin of 14.76% and a return on equity of 9.13%. The business had revenue of $284.57 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $290.33 million. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $0.91 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 3.9% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts expect that BankUnited will post 4.01 EPS for the current year.

BankUnited Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, October 30th. Investors of record on Friday, October 9th will be issued a dividend of $0.33 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, October 9th. This represents a $1.32 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.1%. BankUnited’s payout ratio is currently 36.16%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other BankUnited news, Director Douglas Pauls sold 3,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, August 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $47.90, for a total value of $143,700.00. Following the sale, the director owned 42,472 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,034,408.80. This represents a 6.60% decrease 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. Insiders own 1.00% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Edgestream Partners L.P. acquired a new stake in BankUnited in the 1st quarter valued at about $6,797,000. BlackRock Inc. acquired a new position in BankUnited during the second quarter worth about $518,492,000. Burney Co. acquired a new position in BankUnited during the first quarter worth about $1,026,000. Ieq Capital LLC acquired a new position in BankUnited during the second quarter worth about $2,438,000. Finally, Bank of America Corp DE lifted its holdings in shares of BankUnited by 9.0% in the first quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 819,548 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $37,011,000 after purchasing an additional 67,981 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 99.70% of the company’s stock.

About BankUnited

BankUnited, Inc (NYSE:BKU) is the bank holding company for BankUnited, N.A., a regional financial institution headquartered in Miami Lakes, Florida. The bank serves businesses, professionals, institutions and individual consumers through a range of commercial and personal banking products.

BankUnited’s offerings include commercial and industrial lending, commercial real estate financing, residential mortgage warehouse lending, consumer loans, checking and savings accounts, certificates of deposit, and treasury management services.