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

First Busey Co. (NASDAQ:BUSE) declared a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, January 14th,Wall Street Journal reports. Shareholders 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 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.37%. 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 raised its dividend by an average of 1.4% per year over the last three years. First Busey has a dividend payout ratio of 33.6% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect First Busey to earn $2.47 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.96 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 38.9%.

First Busey Price Performance

NASDAQ BUSE traded down $0.19 on Thursday, hitting $22.86. 304,326 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 294,823. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $25.33 and a 200-day moving average of $25.60. The stock has a market cap of $1.30 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 11.78 and a beta of 0.88. First Busey has a 52 week low of $21.59 and a 52 week high of $28.97. The company has a current ratio of 0.82, a quick ratio of 0.82 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.22.

First Busey (NASDAQ:BUSE) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 22nd. The bank reported $0.58 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.54 by $0.04. The business 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 last year, the firm posted $0.55 earnings per share. Analysts expect that First Busey will post 2.07 earnings per share for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Stephens cut 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 report on Monday, October 14th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods boosted their target price on shares of First Busey from $32.00 to $34.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, December 4th.

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.