Heritage Financial Co. (NASDAQ:HFWA) Receives Average Recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from Analysts

Heritage Financial Co. (NASDAQ:HFWA) has been given an average recommendation of “Moderate Buy” by the four research firms that are covering the stock, MarketBeat.com reports. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and two have given a buy recommendation to the company. The average 12 month target price among brokers that have covered the stock in the last year is $23.50.

HFWA has been the subject of several recent research reports. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods lifted their price target on Heritage Financial from $20.00 to $23.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, July 26th. Piper Sandler lifted their price objective on Heritage Financial from $23.00 to $26.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, July 29th.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Heritage Financial

Several hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. CWM LLC lifted its stake in Heritage Financial by 17.1% during the third quarter. CWM LLC now owns 3,297 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $72,000 after purchasing an additional 481 shares during the last quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC lifted its stake in Heritage Financial by 43.7% during the third quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 1,975 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $43,000 after purchasing an additional 601 shares during the last quarter. Point72 Asia Singapore Pte. Ltd. bought a new stake in Heritage Financial during the second quarter worth about $25,000. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. lifted its stake in Heritage Financial by 72.6% during the fourth quarter. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 3,394 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $73,000 after purchasing an additional 1,428 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD lifted its stake in Heritage Financial by 5.2% during the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 29,784 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $578,000 after purchasing an additional 1,471 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 78.30% of the company’s stock.

Heritage Financial Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ HFWA opened at $22.62 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $784.69 million, a PE ratio of 17.01 and a beta of 0.53. Heritage Financial has a fifty-two week low of $15.50 and a fifty-two week high of $23.82. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.61, a quick ratio of 0.81 and a current ratio of 0.81. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $21.88 and a 200-day moving average of $19.82.

Heritage Financial (NASDAQ:HFWA) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, July 25th. The financial services provider reported $0.45 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.41 by $0.04. The company had revenue of $56.36 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $58.27 million. Heritage Financial had a return on equity of 7.95% and a net margin of 14.59%. Equities research analysts anticipate that Heritage Financial will post 1.66 earnings per share for the current year.

Heritage Financial Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, August 21st. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, August 7th were paid a dividend of $0.23 per share. This represents a $0.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.07%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, August 7th. Heritage Financial’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 69.17%.

Heritage Financial Company Profile

Heritage Financial Corporation operates as the bank holding company for Heritage Bank that provides various financial services to small and medium sized businesses and individuals in the United States. It accepts various deposit products, such as noninterest demand deposits, interest bearing demand deposits, money market accounts, savings accounts, personal checking accounts, and certificates of deposit.