Columbia Banking System, Inc. Announces Quarterly Dividend of $0.36 (NASDAQ:COLB)

Columbia Banking System, Inc. (NASDAQ:COLB) announced a quarterly dividend on Monday, May 13th, Zacks reports. Shareholders of record on Friday, May 24th will be paid a dividend of 0.36 per share by the financial services provider on Monday, June 10th. This represents a $1.44 annualized dividend and a yield of 7.16%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, May 23rd.

Columbia Banking System has raised its dividend by an average of 7.2% annually over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 3 consecutive years. Columbia Banking System has a dividend payout ratio of 55.0% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect Columbia Banking System to earn $2.63 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.44 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 54.8%.

Columbia Banking System Trading Up 0.2 %

Shares of NASDAQ COLB opened at $20.11 on Wednesday. Columbia Banking System has a 12 month low of $17.08 and a 12 month high of $28.11. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $19.01 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $21.20. The stock has a market cap of $4.21 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 8.63 and a beta of 0.69.

Columbia Banking System (NASDAQ:COLB) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, April 25th. The financial services provider reported $0.65 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.53 by $0.12. Columbia Banking System had a net margin of 16.52% and a return on equity of 11.58%. The business had revenue of $473.72 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $480.39 million. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $0.46 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 10.3% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts forecast that Columbia Banking System will post 2.44 EPS for the current year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages have commented on COLB. Royal Bank of Canada decreased their price objective on shares of Columbia Banking System from $25.00 to $21.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, April 9th. Raymond James lowered shares of Columbia Banking System from a “strong-buy” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $25.00 target price for the company. in a report on Thursday, January 25th. Barclays lifted their target price on shares of Columbia Banking System from $20.00 to $21.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, April 26th. Citigroup cut their target price on shares of Columbia Banking System from $25.00 to $20.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, March 13th. Finally, TheStreet lowered shares of Columbia Banking System from a “b-” rating to a “c+” rating in a report on Thursday, February 22nd. Twelve investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Columbia Banking System presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $22.19.

About Columbia Banking System

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.