BancFirst Co. Declares Quarterly Dividend of $0.46 (NASDAQ:BANF)

BancFirst Co. (NASDAQ:BANF) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, February 27th, Wall Street Journal reports. Shareholders of record on Monday, March 31st will be given a dividend of 0.46 per share by the bank on Tuesday, April 15th. This represents a $1.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.68%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, March 31st.

BancFirst has raised its dividend payment by an average of 8.3% annually over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 31 consecutive years. BancFirst has a dividend payout ratio of 28.4% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect BancFirst to earn $6.10 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.84 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 30.2%.

BancFirst Price Performance

BANF traded down $1.93 during trading on Friday, reaching $109.51. The stock had a trading volume of 56,497 shares, compared to its average volume of 98,318. The business has a 50-day moving average of $116.26 and a 200-day moving average of $115.69. BancFirst has a one year low of $81.21 and a one year high of $132.29. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.05, a quick ratio of 0.98 and a current ratio of 0.98. The stock has a market cap of $3.64 billion, a PE ratio of 17.00 and a beta of 1.03.

BancFirst (NASDAQ:BANF) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, January 23rd. The bank reported $1.68 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.61 by $0.07. BancFirst had a return on equity of 14.21% and a net margin of 23.52%. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that BancFirst will post 6.52 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

BANF has been the subject of several recent research reports. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods boosted their price objective on BancFirst from $117.00 to $135.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 4th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of BancFirst from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, March 3rd.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other BancFirst news, Director William Scott Martin sold 10,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $119.13, for a total transaction of $1,191,300.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 214,499 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $25,553,265.87. This trade represents a 4.45 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, Director F Ford Drummond sold 5,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $120.58, for a total value of $602,900.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 6,000 shares in the company, valued at $723,480. The trade was a 45.45 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 25,000 shares of company stock worth $2,994,350 over the last three months. Company insiders own 33.89% of the company’s stock.

About BancFirst

BancFirst Corporation operates as the bank holding company for BancFirst that provides a range of commercial banking services to retail customers, and small to medium-sized businesses. The company operates through BancFirst Metropolitan Banks, BancFirst Community Banks, Pegasus, Worthington, and Other Financial Services segments.