5,000 Shares in Preferred Bank $PFBC Acquired by Louisiana State Employees Retirement System

Louisiana State Employees Retirement System acquired a new stake in Preferred Bank (NASDAQ:PFBC) in the 1st quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund acquired 5,000 shares of the bank’s stock, valued at approximately $453,000.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Hsbc Holdings PLC boosted its position in Preferred Bank by 24.3% in the fourth quarter. Hsbc Holdings PLC now owns 144,588 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $13,957,000 after buying an additional 28,268 shares in the last quarter. DGS Capital Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Preferred Bank during the fourth quarter worth $248,000. Virtu Financial LLC bought a new position in shares of Preferred Bank in the 4th quarter valued at $1,166,000. Invesco Ltd. lifted its stake in shares of Preferred Bank by 38.7% in the 4th quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 101,932 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $9,625,000 after acquiring an additional 28,454 shares during the last quarter. Finally, NewEdge Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Preferred Bank by 60.6% during the 4th quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC now owns 5,562 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $525,000 after acquiring an additional 2,098 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 72.77% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities research analysts recently weighed in on PFBC shares. Piper Sandler boosted their price objective on Preferred Bank from $105.00 to $111.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, April 27th. Weiss Ratings upgraded Preferred Bank from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a research report on Monday, June 8th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and four have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $102.00.

Preferred Bank Price Performance

PFBC stock opened at $103.17 on Thursday. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $98.14 and a 200-day moving average price of $94.26. The company has a market capitalization of $1.49 billion, a P/E ratio of 9.66 and a beta of 0.55. Preferred Bank has a 52-week low of $81.50 and a 52-week high of $112.26. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45, a quick ratio of 1.06 and a current ratio of 1.07.

Preferred Bank (NASDAQ:PFBC) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, April 22nd. The bank reported $2.53 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.48 by $0.05. Preferred Bank had a net margin of 26.49% and a return on equity of 17.52%. The company had revenue of $69.62 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $71.76 million. As a group, equities analysts expect that Preferred Bank will post 10.67 EPS for the current year.

Preferred Bank Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, July 21st. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, July 7th will be issued a dividend of $0.80 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, July 7th. This represents a $3.20 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.1%. Preferred Bank’s payout ratio is presently 29.96%.

Preferred Bank Profile

Preferred Bank (NASDAQ: PFBC) is a California-chartered commercial bank headquartered in Los Angeles. The institution offers a full range of banking products and services to businesses and individuals, with a particular emphasis on commercial real estate lending, business banking, treasury management and deposit accounts. Preferred Bank operates through branch offices across Southern California and national loan production offices in major U.S. markets.

The bank’s core lending portfolio focuses on commercial real estate acquisition, development and investment properties.