Inceptionr LLC Purchases Shares of 13,374 First Busey Co. (NASDAQ:BUSE)

Inceptionr LLC acquired a new position in shares of First Busey Co. (NASDAQ:BUSE) during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund acquired 13,374 shares of the bank’s stock, valued at approximately $315,000.

Other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the company. State Street Corp grew its position in First Busey by 0.4% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 1,497,004 shares of the bank’s stock worth $38,952,000 after acquiring an additional 6,367 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in First Busey by 1.7% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,295,804 shares of the bank’s stock worth $33,723,000 after purchasing an additional 22,096 shares in the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its holdings in shares of First Busey by 1.9% during the fourth quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 707,323 shares of the bank’s stock worth $16,672,000 after purchasing an additional 12,879 shares during the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. grew its holdings in shares of First Busey by 9.0% during the third quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 482,287 shares of the bank’s stock worth $12,549,000 after purchasing an additional 39,900 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Victory Capital Management Inc. increased its stake in shares of First Busey by 0.4% in the fourth quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 322,813 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $7,609,000 after buying an additional 1,413 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 56.49% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities research analysts have weighed in on the stock. Stephens restated an “equal weight” rating and issued a $26.00 price objective on shares of First Busey in a research report on Monday, February 24th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $33.00 price target (down previously from $34.00) on shares of First Busey in a report on Thursday, January 30th. DA Davidson restated a “neutral” rating and issued a $25.00 price objective on shares of First Busey in a research report on Tuesday, February 25th. Finally, Piper Sandler decreased their price objective on First Busey from $32.00 to $28.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $28.00.

First Busey Stock Down 0.2 %

Shares of NASDAQ BUSE opened at $22.55 on Monday. The company has a current ratio of 0.82, a quick ratio of 0.82 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.22. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.28 billion, a PE ratio of 11.45 and a beta of 0.84. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $23.65 and its 200-day moving average is $25.13. First Busey Co. has a 1 year low of $21.59 and a 1 year high of $28.97.

First Busey (NASDAQ:BUSE) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, January 28th. The bank reported $0.53 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.52 by $0.01. First Busey had a net margin of 17.14% and a return on equity of 8.94%. Equities analysts expect that First Busey Co. will post 2.61 EPS for the current year.

First Busey Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, January 31st. Investors of record on Friday, January 24th were paid a dividend of $0.25 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, January 24th. This is a boost from First Busey’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.24. This represents a $1.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 4.43%. First Busey’s payout ratio is 50.76%.

Insider Activity at First Busey

In related news, Director Stanley J. Bradshaw bought 1,838 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 26th. The stock was bought at an average cost of $23.75 per share, for a total transaction of $43,652.50. Following the transaction, the director now owns 437,481 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $10,390,173.75. This represents a 0.42 % increase in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. 7.10% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

About First Busey

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.