Berkshire Hills Bancorp, Inc. (NYSE:BHLB) to Issue $0.18 Quarterly Dividend

Berkshire Hills Bancorp, Inc. (NYSE:BHLB) announced a quarterly dividend on Friday, February 7th,RTT News reports. Investors of record on Thursday, February 20th will be paid a dividend of 0.18 per share by the savings and loans company on Thursday, March 6th. This represents a $0.72 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.43%.

Berkshire Hills Bancorp has raised its dividend by an average of 14.5% annually over the last three years. Berkshire Hills Bancorp has a payout ratio of 21.4% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect Berkshire Hills Bancorp to earn $3.68 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.72 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 19.6%.

Berkshire Hills Bancorp Price Performance

Shares of Berkshire Hills Bancorp stock traded down $0.87 during midday trading on Friday, hitting $29.61. 39,016 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 390,057. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.38, a current ratio of 1.00 and a quick ratio of 1.00. The firm has a market cap of $1.27 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.58 and a beta of 0.88. Berkshire Hills Bancorp has a 52 week low of $20.50 and a 52 week high of $32.36. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $28.97 and a 200-day simple moving average of $28.03.

Berkshire Hills Bancorp (NYSE:BHLB) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The savings and loans company reported $0.60 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.54 by $0.06. Berkshire Hills Bancorp had a return on equity of 8.91% and a net margin of 8.56%. Research analysts forecast that Berkshire Hills Bancorp will post 2.48 earnings per share for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have recently weighed in on BHLB. Piper Sandler raised shares of Berkshire Hills Bancorp from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. Seaport Res Ptn raised Berkshire Hills Bancorp from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upped their price objective on Berkshire Hills Bancorp from $32.00 to $34.50 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, December 24th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada reiterated a “sector perform” rating and set a $31.00 target price on shares of Berkshire Hills Bancorp in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, one has assigned a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $31.13.

Berkshire Hills Bancorp Company Profile

Berkshire Hills Bancorp, Inc operates as the bank holding company for Berkshire Bank that provides various banking products and services in the United States. The company provides various deposit accounts, including demand deposit, interest-bearing checking, regular savings, money market savings, time certificates of deposit, and retirement deposit accounts.