Columbia Banking System, Inc. (NASDAQ:COLB) Receives Consensus Rating of “Hold” from Analysts

Shares of Columbia Banking System, Inc. (NASDAQ:COLB) have been assigned an average recommendation of “Hold” from the thirteen ratings firms that are presently covering the stock, Marketbeat.com reports. Ten analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and three have given a buy recommendation to the company. The average 1 year target price among brokers that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $26.96.

COLB has been the topic of several recent research reports. Truist Financial lowered their price objective on shares of Columbia Banking System from $29.00 to $28.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, September 20th. Stephens increased their price objective on shares of Columbia Banking System from $22.00 to $26.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, July 26th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised their target price on shares of Columbia Banking System from $23.00 to $27.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, July 26th. Raymond James raised their target price on shares of Columbia Banking System from $26.00 to $28.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 2nd. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company raised their price target on Columbia Banking System from $28.00 to $30.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Columbia Banking System

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. LSV Asset Management purchased a new stake in shares of Columbia Banking System during the first quarter worth about $2,850,000. BNP Paribas Financial Markets raised its stake in shares of Columbia Banking System by 185.1% during the 1st quarter. BNP Paribas Financial Markets now owns 173,776 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $3,363,000 after buying an additional 112,826 shares during the period. First Hawaiian Bank raised its stake in shares of Columbia Banking System by 81.4% during the 2nd quarter. First Hawaiian Bank now owns 52,594 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $1,046,000 after buying an additional 23,597 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Columbia Banking System by 2.6% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 22,327,719 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $432,041,000 after purchasing an additional 574,509 shares in the last quarter. Finally, BNP PARIBAS ASSET MANAGEMENT Holding S.A. increased its position in shares of Columbia Banking System by 7.6% during the first quarter. BNP PARIBAS ASSET MANAGEMENT Holding S.A. now owns 420,374 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $8,135,000 after purchasing an additional 29,728 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.53% of the company’s stock.

Columbia Banking System Stock Performance

Shares of COLB stock opened at $27.90 on Tuesday. The company has a market capitalization of $5.84 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 11.97 and a beta of 0.64. The company’s 50-day moving average is $25.49 and its 200 day moving average is $22.24. Columbia Banking System has a one year low of $17.08 and a one year high of $28.62.

Columbia Banking System (NASDAQ:COLB) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, October 24th. The financial services provider reported $0.69 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.62 by $0.07. Columbia Banking System had a net margin of 15.94% and a return on equity of 10.89%. The business had revenue of $765.06 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $478.80 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $0.79 EPS. As a group, research analysts predict that Columbia Banking System will post 2.55 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Columbia Banking System Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, September 9th. Investors of record on Friday, August 23rd were issued a $0.36 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, August 23rd. This represents a $1.44 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 5.16%. Columbia Banking System’s payout ratio is currently 61.80%.

Columbia Banking System Company Profile

Columbia Banking System, Inc operates as the holding company of Umpqua Bank that provides banking, private banking, mortgage, and other financial services in the United States. The company offers deposit products, including business, non-interest bearing checking, interest-bearing checking and savings, money market, and certificate of deposit accounts; and insured cash sweep and other investment sweep solutions.