Business First Bancshares, Inc. (BFST) To Go Ex-Dividend on February 14th

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 paid a dividend of 0.14 per share on Friday, February 28th. This represents a $0.56 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.02%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, February 14th.

Business First Bancshares has raised its dividend by an average of 6.8% per year over the last three years. Business First Bancshares has a payout ratio of 18.6% 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 Stock Up 8.8 %

Shares of NASDAQ:BFST opened at $27.69 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $817.96 million, a P/E ratio of 11.94 and a beta of 1.00. Business First Bancshares has a 12-month low of $18.97 and a 12-month high of $30.30. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $26.63 and a 200 day simple moving average of $25.45. 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 (NASDAQ:BFST) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 23rd. The company reported $0.66 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.49 by $0.17. Business First Bancshares had a return on equity of 11.57% and a net margin of 14.92%. Analysts predict that Business First Bancshares will post 2.27 earnings per share for the current year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

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

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, Director Joseph Vernon Johnson sold 2,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $26.33, for a total transaction of $65,825.00. Following the transaction, the director now owns 183,057 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,819,890.81. This represents a 1.35 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. In the last three months, insiders have sold 12,480 shares of company stock worth $329,972. Corporate insiders own 6.45% of the company’s stock.

Business First Bancshares Company Profile

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.