Hancock Whitney Corp Takes $564,000 Position in SouthState Co. (NASDAQ:SSB)

Hancock Whitney Corp purchased a new stake in shares of SouthState Co. (NASDAQ:SSB) during the 1st quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor purchased 6,634 shares of the bank’s stock, valued at approximately $564,000.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in SSB. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD boosted its position in shares of SouthState by 6.2% in the 1st quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 49,792 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $4,234,000 after purchasing an additional 2,899 shares during the period. Gamco Investors INC. ET AL increased its position in SouthState by 2.8% in the 1st quarter. Gamco Investors INC. ET AL now owns 53,466 shares of the bank’s stock worth $4,546,000 after buying an additional 1,458 shares during the period. CANADA LIFE ASSURANCE Co increased its position in SouthState by 1.4% in the 1st quarter. CANADA LIFE ASSURANCE Co now owns 78,788 shares of the bank’s stock worth $6,699,000 after buying an additional 1,100 shares during the period. Bessemer Group Inc. increased its position in SouthState by 7.1% in the 1st quarter. Bessemer Group Inc. now owns 159,277 shares of the bank’s stock worth $13,544,000 after buying an additional 10,504 shares during the period. Finally, Spirepoint Private Client LLC bought a new position in SouthState in the 1st quarter worth approximately $1,050,000. 89.76% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities analysts have weighed in on SSB shares. DA Davidson increased their target price on SouthState from $102.00 to $112.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, July 26th. Stephens increased their price target on SouthState from $88.00 to $101.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Monday. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised their price objective on SouthState from $95.00 to $110.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday. Piper Sandler lifted their price target on SouthState from $95.00 to $98.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, May 29th. Finally, Raymond James raised SouthState from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $90.00 price target for the company in a report on Tuesday, May 21st. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $102.75.

SouthState Trading Down 5.2 %

Shares of NASDAQ:SSB traded down $5.14 on Thursday, reaching $93.83. 387,800 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 480,697. The company has a current ratio of 0.91, a quick ratio of 0.90 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.12. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $80.06 and its 200 day simple moving average is $80.81. The stock has a market capitalization of $7.15 billion, a P/E ratio of 15.65 and a beta of 0.68. SouthState Co. has a 52 week low of $63.36 and a 52 week high of $101.32.

SouthState (NASDAQ:SSB) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, July 24th. The bank reported $1.79 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.54 by $0.25. The firm had revenue of $425.48 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $418.08 million. SouthState had a net margin of 20.84% and a return on equity of 9.31%. The business’s revenue was down 3.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business earned $1.63 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that SouthState Co. will post 6.64 EPS for the current fiscal year.

SouthState Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, August 16th. Shareholders of record on Friday, August 9th will be issued a dividend of $0.54 per share. This represents a $2.16 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.30%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, August 9th. This is an increase from SouthState’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.23. SouthState’s dividend payout ratio is 33.93%.

About SouthState

SouthState Corporation operates as the bank holding company for SouthState Bank, National Association that provides a range of banking services and products to individuals and companies. It offers checking accounts, savings deposits, interest-bearing transaction accounts, certificates of deposits, money market accounts, and other time deposits, as well as bond accounting, asset/liability consulting related activities, and other clearing and corporate checking account services.