Preferred Bank (NASDAQ:PFBC) to Issue Dividend Increase – $0.75 Per Share

Preferred Bank (NASDAQ:PFBC) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, December 26th,RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 9th will be paid a dividend of 0.75 per share by the bank on Thursday, January 23rd. This represents a $3.00 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.43%. This is a boost from Preferred Bank’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.70.

Preferred Bank has raised its dividend payment by an average of 22.4% annually over the last three years. Preferred Bank has a dividend payout ratio of 31.3% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect Preferred Bank to earn $8.82 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $2.80 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 31.7%.

Preferred Bank Price Performance

NASDAQ:PFBC traded up $0.60 during mid-day trading on Thursday, reaching $87.34. The stock had a trading volume of 42,668 shares, compared to its average volume of 81,194. Preferred Bank has a one year low of $66.88 and a one year high of $99.78. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20, a quick ratio of 1.08 and a current ratio of 1.08. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $90.35 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $82.98. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.26 billion, a P/E ratio of 8.75 and a beta of 0.96.

Preferred Bank (NASDAQ:PFBC) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Monday, October 21st. The bank reported $2.46 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.39 by $0.07. Preferred Bank had a net margin of 26.20% and a return on equity of 19.01%. The business had revenue of $132.88 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $68.80 million. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $2.71 earnings per share. As a group, analysts expect that Preferred Bank will post 9.75 earnings per share for the current year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Separately, Stephens lowered shares of Preferred Bank from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating in a report on Monday, December 9th.

Preferred Bank Company Profile

Preferred Bank provides various commercial banking products and services to small and mid-sized businesses and their owners, entrepreneurs, real estate developers and investors, professionals, and high net worth individuals. The company accepts checking, savings, and money market deposit accounts; fixed-rate and fixed maturity retail, and non-retail certificates of deposit; and individual retirement accounts.