Barclays PLC Acquires 10,055 Shares of SmartFinancial, Inc. (NASDAQ:SMBK)

Barclays PLC increased its position in SmartFinancial, Inc. (NASDAQ:SMBK) by 78.6% during the third quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 22,848 shares of the bank’s stock after acquiring an additional 10,055 shares during the quarter. Barclays PLC’s holdings in SmartFinancial were worth $666,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its stake in SmartFinancial by 5.3% during the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 699,794 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $16,563,000 after acquiring an additional 35,054 shares during the period. Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its position in shares of SmartFinancial by 69.0% in the third quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 340,418 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $9,920,000 after acquiring an additional 139,009 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp raised its position in shares of SmartFinancial by 3.3% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 336,147 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $9,795,000 after buying an additional 10,623 shares during the last quarter. Deprince Race & Zollo Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of SmartFinancial by 2.2% during the 2nd quarter. Deprince Race & Zollo Inc. now owns 200,565 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $4,747,000 after purchasing an additional 4,412 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Foundry Partners LLC boosted its position in shares of SmartFinancial by 23.9% during the 3rd quarter. Foundry Partners LLC now owns 184,555 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $5,378,000 after acquiring an additional 35,565 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 58.78% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages have issued reports on SMBK. Hovde Group upped their price objective on SmartFinancial from $28.00 to $32.50 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 23rd. Stephens downgraded SmartFinancial from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Monday, December 9th. Finally, Raymond James increased their target price on SmartFinancial from $32.00 to $36.00 and gave the company a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 23rd. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $29.50.

Insider Activity at SmartFinancial

In other SmartFinancial news, Director John M. Presley sold 6,916 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $35.05, for a total value of $242,405.80. Following the transaction, the director now owns 3,960 shares in the company, valued at approximately $138,798. This trade represents a 63.59 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 7,516 shares of company stock valued at $262,600. 7.68% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

SmartFinancial Trading Down 0.5 %

NASDAQ SMBK opened at $30.98 on Thursday. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $34.23 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $29.75. SmartFinancial, Inc. has a 12-month low of $19.00 and a 12-month high of $37.72. The company has a current ratio of 0.90, a quick ratio of 0.90 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.10. The stock has a market cap of $524.37 million, a P/E ratio of 15.97 and a beta of 0.68.

SmartFinancial (NASDAQ:SMBK) last released its quarterly earnings data on Monday, October 21st. The bank reported $0.54 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.49 by $0.05. The business had revenue of $73.10 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $42.32 million. SmartFinancial had a net margin of 11.88% and a return on equity of 6.81%. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $0.43 EPS. On average, analysts forecast that SmartFinancial, Inc. will post 2.02 earnings per share for the current year.

SmartFinancial Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, November 27th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were given a dividend of $0.08 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, November 12th. This represents a $0.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.03%. SmartFinancial’s dividend payout ratio is currently 16.49%.

SmartFinancial Company Profile

SmartFinancial, Inc operates as the bank holding company for SmartBank that provides various financial services to individuals and corporate customers in Tennessee, Alabama, and Florida. It operates through Commercial Real Estate, Consumer Real Estate, Construction and Land Development, Commercial and Industrial, Leases, and Consumer and Other segments.