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

Business First Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:BFST) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, July 25th, Zacks reports. Stockholders of record on Thursday, August 15th will be given a dividend of 0.14 per share on Saturday, August 31st. This represents a $0.56 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.14%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, August 15th.

Business First Bancshares has raised its dividend payment by an average of 7.7% per year over the last three years. Business First Bancshares has a payout ratio of 21.2% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Business First Bancshares to earn $2.65 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 21.1%.

Business First Bancshares Stock Up 4.0 %

BFST stock opened at $26.22 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $668.61 million, a PE ratio of 10.32 and a beta of 0.98. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.72, a quick ratio of 0.98 and a current ratio of 0.98. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $21.60 and its 200-day moving average price is $21.73. Business First Bancshares has a one year low of $16.92 and a one year high of $26.68.

Business First Bancshares (NASDAQ:BFST) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, July 25th. The company reported $0.64 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.51 by $0.13. The firm had revenue of $112.05 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $63.16 million. Business First Bancshares had a net margin of 15.90% and a return on equity of 12.36%. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $0.70 EPS. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Business First Bancshares will post 2.02 EPS for the current year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Separately, Hovde Group lifted their price target on shares of Business First Bancshares from $29.00 to $30.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday. One research analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $25.00.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, Director Rick D. Day purchased 1,800 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, April 30th. The shares were bought at an average cost of $20.30 per share, for a total transaction of $36,540.00. Following the completion of the purchase, the director now directly owns 262,785 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,334,535.50. The purchase was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. 6.45% of the stock is owned by 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.