Business First Bancshares, Inc. Declares Quarterly Dividend of $0.14 (NASDAQ:BFST)

Business First Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:BFST) announced a quarterly dividend on Friday, January 24th,Wall Street Journal reports. Investors of record on Saturday, February 15th will be given a dividend of 0.14 per share on Friday, February 28th. This represents a $0.56 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.02%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, February 14th.

Business First Bancshares has raised its dividend by an average of 6.8% annually over the last three years. Business First Bancshares has a payout ratio of 18.9% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect Business First Bancshares to earn $2.54 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.56 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 22.0%.

Business First Bancshares Trading Up 8.8 %

Business First Bancshares stock opened at $27.69 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $817.96 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 11.94 and a beta of 1.00. The company has a quick ratio of 0.99, a current ratio of 0.99 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.75. Business First Bancshares has a 12 month low of $18.97 and a 12 month high of $30.30. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $26.64 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $25.40.

Business First Bancshares (NASDAQ:BFST) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 23rd. The company reported $0.66 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.49 by $0.17. Business First Bancshares had a net margin of 14.92% and a return on equity of 11.57%. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Business First Bancshares will post 2.27 EPS for the current year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms recently weighed in on BFST. Hovde Group raised shares of Business First Bancshares from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and upped their target price for the company from $31.50 to $33.00 in a research note on Friday. Raymond James raised Business First Bancshares from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $30.00 price objective on the stock in a report on Thursday, December 19th.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, Director Joseph Vernon Johnson sold 6,000 shares of Business First Bancshares stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $26.36, for a total value of $158,160.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 185,557 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,891,282.52. The trade was a 3.13 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Insiders sold 12,480 shares of company stock worth $329,972 over the last three months. 6.45% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

About Business First Bancshares

Business First Bancshares, Inc operates as the bank holding company for b1BANK that provides various banking products and services in Louisiana and Texas. It offers various deposit products and services, including checking, demand, money market, time, and savings accounts; and certificates of deposits, remote deposit capture, and direct deposit services.