First Busey Co. (NASDAQ:BUSE) to Issue Dividend Increase – $0.25 Per Share

First Busey Co. (NASDAQ:BUSE) announced a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, January 14th,Wall Street Journal reports. Investors of record on Friday, January 24th will be given a dividend of 0.25 per share by the bank on Friday, January 31st. This represents a $1.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 4.31%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 24th. This is a boost from First Busey’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.24.

First Busey has increased its dividend payment by an average of 1.4% per year over the last three years. First Busey has a payout ratio of 35.0% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect First Busey to earn $2.48 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.00 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 40.3%.

First Busey Price Performance

NASDAQ BUSE opened at $23.20 on Wednesday. First Busey has a 12-month low of $21.59 and a 12-month high of $28.97. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $25.03 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $25.59. The company has a current ratio of 0.82, a quick ratio of 0.82 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.22. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.32 billion, a P/E ratio of 11.96 and a beta of 0.88.

First Busey (NASDAQ:BUSE) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, October 22nd. The bank reported $0.58 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.54 by $0.04. The company had revenue of $170.45 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $118.32 million. First Busey had a return on equity of 8.94% and a net margin of 16.94%. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $0.55 EPS. Analysts forecast that First Busey will post 2.07 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts recently commented on the stock. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods increased their price objective on shares of First Busey from $32.00 to $34.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 4th. Stephens downgraded shares of First Busey from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and lowered their price objective for the stock from $28.00 to $27.00 in a research note on Monday, October 14th.

First Busey Company Profile

First Busey Corporation operates as the bank holding company for Busey Bank that engages in the provision of retail and commercial banking products and services to individual, corporate, institutional, and governmental customers in the United States. It operates through three segments: Banking, Wealth Management, and FirsTech.