Huntington National Bank Takes Position in First Busey Co. (NASDAQ:BUSE)

Huntington National Bank purchased a new position in shares of First Busey Co. (NASDAQ:BUSE) during the third quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm purchased 1,455 shares of the bank’s stock, valued at approximately $38,000.

Other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the company. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. boosted its stake in First Busey by 211.9% in the third quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 100,952 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $2,627,000 after buying an additional 68,585 shares in the last quarter. CarsonAllaria Wealth Management Ltd. acquired a new stake in First Busey during the 3rd quarter worth about $43,000. Creative Planning increased its holdings in First Busey by 45.6% in the third quarter. Creative Planning now owns 55,090 shares of the bank’s stock worth $1,433,000 after purchasing an additional 17,248 shares in the last quarter. Inspire Investing LLC increased its stake in shares of First Busey by 8.8% in the 3rd quarter. Inspire Investing LLC now owns 15,889 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $413,000 after acquiring an additional 1,286 shares in the last quarter. Finally, SG Americas Securities LLC acquired a new position in shares of First Busey during the third quarter valued at about $540,000. Institutional investors own 56.49% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several analysts have recently commented on BUSE shares. Stephens downgraded First Busey from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and reduced their target price for the company from $28.00 to $27.00 in a research note on Monday, October 14th. DA Davidson boosted their price objective on First Busey from $28.00 to $29.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 28th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods increased their target price on First Busey from $31.00 to $33.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 28th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded shares of First Busey from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, September 12th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $27.80.

First Busey Stock Performance

Shares of First Busey stock opened at $26.33 on Wednesday. The company has a market cap of $1.50 billion, a PE ratio of 13.57 and a beta of 0.84. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $25.65 and a 200-day moving average price of $25.00. First Busey Co. has a 52 week low of $20.67 and a 52 week high of $28.97. The company has a quick ratio of 0.82, a current ratio of 0.82 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.22.

First Busey (NASDAQ:BUSE) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 22nd. The bank reported $0.58 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.54 by $0.04. First Busey had a net margin of 16.94% and a return on equity of 8.94%. The business had revenue of $170.45 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $118.32 million. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $0.55 EPS. Equities analysts anticipate that First Busey Co. will post 2.07 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

First Busey Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, October 25th. Investors of record on Friday, October 18th were issued a dividend of $0.24 per share. The ex-dividend date was Friday, October 18th. This represents a $0.96 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.65%. First Busey’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 49.48%.

About First Busey

First Busey Corporation operates as the bank holding company for Busey Bank that engages in the provision of retail and commercial banking products and services to individual, corporate, institutional, and governmental customers in the United States. It operates through three segments: Banking, Wealth Management, and FirsTech.