Nisa Investment Advisors LLC Acquires 8,200 Shares of Sandy Spring Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:SASR)

Nisa Investment Advisors LLC grew its holdings in shares of Sandy Spring Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:SASR) by 231.1% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 11,748 shares of the bank’s stock after acquiring an additional 8,200 shares during the quarter. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC’s holdings in Sandy Spring Bancorp were worth $369,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other large investors have also recently modified their holdings of the business. Quantbot Technologies LP bought a new stake in Sandy Spring Bancorp during the first quarter valued at approximately $301,000. Empowered Funds LLC raised its position in shares of Sandy Spring Bancorp by 8.2% during the 1st quarter. Empowered Funds LLC now owns 99,221 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $2,300,000 after buying an additional 7,492 shares in the last quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC bought a new stake in shares of Sandy Spring Bancorp during the 1st quarter worth $122,000. Sei Investments Co. grew its position in Sandy Spring Bancorp by 26.8% in the first quarter. Sei Investments Co. now owns 21,284 shares of the bank’s stock worth $493,000 after acquiring an additional 4,500 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Inspire Investing LLC increased its stake in Sandy Spring Bancorp by 8.2% in the first quarter. Inspire Investing LLC now owns 17,344 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $402,000 after acquiring an additional 1,316 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 66.90% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities research analysts have issued reports on the company. StockNews.com assumed coverage on Sandy Spring Bancorp in a research note on Thursday, October 31st. They set a “sell” rating for the company. DA Davidson upped their target price on Sandy Spring Bancorp from $23.00 to $33.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 25th. Finally, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods boosted their price objective on shares of Sandy Spring Bancorp from $25.00 to $30.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Thursday, July 25th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating and four have assigned a hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $28.25.

Sandy Spring Bancorp Price Performance

SASR opened at $33.41 on Wednesday. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $31.95 and its 200 day simple moving average is $27.50. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54, a current ratio of 1.03 and a quick ratio of 1.02. Sandy Spring Bancorp, Inc. has a 1 year low of $19.52 and a 1 year high of $34.63. The firm has a market cap of $1.51 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.58 and a beta of 0.94.

Sandy Spring Bancorp (NASDAQ:SASR) last released its quarterly earnings data on Monday, October 21st. The bank reported $0.40 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.46 by ($0.06). Sandy Spring Bancorp had a net margin of 11.54% and a return on equity of 5.74%. The company had revenue of $189.81 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $101.60 million. During the same period last year, the company posted $0.62 EPS. As a group, analysts predict that Sandy Spring Bancorp, Inc. will post 1.85 earnings per share for the current year.

Sandy Spring Bancorp Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, November 21st. Shareholders of record on Thursday, November 14th will be issued a $0.34 dividend. This represents a $1.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 4.07%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, November 14th. Sandy Spring Bancorp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 71.58%.

About Sandy Spring Bancorp

Sandy Spring Bancorp, Inc operates as the bank holding company for Sandy Spring Bank that provides commercial and retail banking, mortgage, private banking, and trust services to individuals and businesses in the United States. It offers financial products and services, including various loan and deposit products.