Columbia Banking System, Inc. (NASDAQ:COLB) Announces Quarterly Dividend of $0.36

Columbia Banking System, Inc. (NASDAQ:COLB) announced a quarterly dividend on Friday, November 15th,Wall Street Journal reports. Investors of record on Friday, November 29th will be given a dividend of 0.36 per share by the financial services provider on Monday, December 16th. This represents a $1.44 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.50%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, November 29th.

Columbia Banking System has increased its dividend by an average of 7.2% per year over the last three years. Columbia Banking System has a dividend payout ratio of 53.1% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect Columbia Banking System to earn $2.72 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.44 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 52.9%.

Columbia Banking System Trading Up 0.9 %

NASDAQ COLB traded up $0.29 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, hitting $32.01. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 19,764 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,226,148. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $27.93 and its 200 day simple moving average is $23.92. Columbia Banking System has a twelve month low of $17.08 and a twelve month high of $32.85. The firm has a market capitalization of $6.71 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 13.73 and a beta of 0.62.

Columbia Banking System (NASDAQ:COLB) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 24th. The financial services provider reported $0.69 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.62 by $0.07. Columbia Banking System had a net margin of 16.15% and a return on equity of 10.13%. The business had revenue of $765.06 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $478.80 million. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $0.79 EPS. As a group, research analysts forecast that Columbia Banking System will post 2.63 EPS for the current year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have weighed in on COLB. Wedbush raised their price objective on Columbia Banking System from $31.00 to $35.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, October 25th. Raymond James raised their price objective on Columbia Banking System from $26.00 to $28.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 2nd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their target price on Columbia Banking System from $29.00 to $28.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, October 9th. Barclays lifted their target price on Columbia Banking System from $25.00 to $29.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, October 25th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded Columbia Banking System from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, October 5th. Eleven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Columbia Banking System presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $27.12.

About Columbia Banking System

Columbia Banking System, Inc operates as the holding company of Umpqua Bank that provides banking, private banking, mortgage, and other financial services in the United States. The company offers deposit products, including business, non-interest bearing checking, interest-bearing checking and savings, money market, and certificate of deposit accounts; and insured cash sweep and other investment sweep solutions.