Berkshire Hills Bancorp, Inc. (NYSE:BHLB) Announces Quarterly Dividend of $0.18

Berkshire Hills Bancorp, Inc. (NYSE:BHLB) declared a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, September 17th, NASDAQ reports. Shareholders of record on Monday, September 30th will be paid a dividend of 0.18 per share by the savings and loans company on Thursday, October 10th. This represents a $0.72 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.64%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, September 30th.

Berkshire Hills Bancorp has a dividend payout ratio of 30.1% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Berkshire Hills Bancorp to earn $2.37 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.72 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 30.4%.

Berkshire Hills Bancorp Trading Up 0.1 %

Shares of BHLB traded up $0.04 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, reaching $27.28. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 295,221 shares, compared to its average volume of 254,158. The company has a current ratio of 1.01, a quick ratio of 1.01 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.28. Berkshire Hills Bancorp has a 52 week low of $18.31 and a 52 week high of $28.51. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $26.43 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $23.57. The stock has a market cap of $1.18 billion, a PE ratio of 54.48 and a beta of 0.86.

Berkshire Hills Bancorp (NYSE:BHLB) last released its earnings results on Thursday, July 18th. The savings and loans company reported $0.55 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.52 by $0.03. The company had revenue of $174.24 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $108.46 million. Berkshire Hills Bancorp had a return on equity of 8.61% and a net margin of 3.37%. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.55 EPS. On average, analysts predict that Berkshire Hills Bancorp will post 2.1 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

BHLB has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. Hovde Group boosted their price target on Berkshire Hills Bancorp from $28.00 to $31.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, July 19th. Janney Montgomery Scott downgraded Berkshire Hills Bancorp from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $28.00 target price for the company. in a report on Monday, July 22nd. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded shares of Berkshire Hills Bancorp from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 24th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $26.80.

About Berkshire Hills Bancorp

Berkshire Hills Bancorp, Inc operates as the bank holding company for Berkshire Bank that provides various banking products and services in the United States. The company provides various deposit accounts, including demand deposit, interest-bearing checking, regular savings, money market savings, time certificates of deposit, and retirement deposit accounts.