Eastern Bankshares, Inc. Plans Quarterly Dividend of $0.12 (NASDAQ:EBC)

Eastern Bankshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:EBC) announced a quarterly dividend on Friday, January 24th,Wall Street Journal reports. Shareholders of record on Monday, March 3rd will be given a dividend of 0.12 per share on Friday, March 14th. This represents a $0.48 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.69%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, March 3rd.

Eastern Bankshares has increased its dividend payment by an average of 14.5% per year over the last three years. Eastern Bankshares has a dividend payout ratio of 32.2% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect Eastern Bankshares to earn $1.31 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.48 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 36.6%.

Eastern Bankshares Stock Up 1.4 %

Eastern Bankshares stock opened at $17.85 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.83 billion, a PE ratio of 7.69 and a beta of 0.94. Eastern Bankshares has a 52 week low of $12.22 and a 52 week high of $19.40. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $17.75 and its 200 day simple moving average is $16.86.

Eastern Bankshares (NASDAQ:EBC) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 23rd. The company reported $0.34 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.29 by $0.05. Eastern Bankshares had a return on equity of 4.49% and a net margin of 38.00%. On average, research analysts expect that Eastern Bankshares will post 0.98 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Separately, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised their target price on shares of Eastern Bankshares from $19.00 to $21.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 4th.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, Director Deborah C. Jackson sold 5,713 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $18.56, for a total transaction of $106,033.28. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 67,284 shares in the company, valued at $1,248,791.04. This represents a 7.83 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. 1.15% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

About Eastern Bankshares

Eastern Bankshares, Inc operates as the bank holding company for Eastern Bank that provides banking products and services primarily to retail, commercial, and small business customers. The company provides deposit accounts, interest checking accounts, money market accounts, savings accounts, and time certificates of deposit accounts.