Heritage Financial Co. (HFWA) To Go Ex-Dividend on February 6th

Heritage Financial Co. (NASDAQ:HFWA) declared a quarterly dividend on Friday, January 24th,Wall Street Journal reports. Stockholders of record on Thursday, February 6th will be given a dividend of 0.24 per share by the financial services provider on Thursday, February 20th. This represents a $0.96 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.89%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, February 6th. This is a positive change from Heritage Financial’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.23.

Heritage Financial has raised its dividend by an average of 4.3% per year over the last three years and has raised its dividend every year for the last 13 years. Heritage Financial has a dividend payout ratio of 43.0% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Heritage Financial to earn $1.92 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.96 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 50.0%.

Heritage Financial Price Performance

HFWA opened at $24.65 on Friday. The business has a fifty day moving average of $25.10 and a 200 day moving average of $23.24. The stock has a market cap of $841.80 million, a P/E ratio of 22.82 and a beta of 0.57. The company has a quick ratio of 0.82, a current ratio of 0.82 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.46. Heritage Financial has a 52-week low of $16.55 and a 52-week high of $27.58.

Heritage Financial (NASDAQ:HFWA) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, January 23rd. The financial services provider reported $0.51 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.45 by $0.06. Heritage Financial had a net margin of 12.27% and a return on equity of 7.01%. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Heritage Financial will post 1.76 EPS for the current year.

Insider Transactions at Heritage Financial

In other news, EVP Tony Chalfant sold 2,975 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, November 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $26.50, for a total value of $78,837.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 20,119 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $533,153.50. The trade was a 12.88 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Corporate insiders own 1.80% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities analysts have recently commented on the stock. Piper Sandler raised their target price on shares of Heritage Financial from $27.00 to $28.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, October 28th. Stephens raised their price objective on Heritage Financial from $24.00 to $26.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $25.00.

About Heritage Financial

Heritage Financial Corporation operates as the bank holding company for Heritage Bank that provides various financial services to small and medium sized businesses and individuals in the United States. It accepts various deposit products, such as noninterest demand deposits, interest bearing demand deposits, money market accounts, savings accounts, personal checking accounts, and certificates of deposit.