Equity Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:EQBK) CEO Sells $98,072.00 in Stock

Equity Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:EQBK) CEO Brad S. Elliott sold 2,300 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, September 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $42.64, for a total value of $98,072.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 151,979 shares in the company, valued at approximately $6,480,384.56. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website.

Equity Bancshares Stock Performance

Equity Bancshares stock opened at $41.73 on Monday. Equity Bancshares, Inc. has a 12-month low of $22.78 and a 12-month high of $42.64. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.75, a current ratio of 0.84 and a quick ratio of 0.84. The company has a market capitalization of $636.51 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 69.55 and a beta of 0.90. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $39.41 and its 200 day moving average price is $35.58.

Equity Bancshares (NASDAQ:EQBK) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, July 16th. The bank reported $0.99 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.92 by $0.07. The business had revenue of $55.43 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $54.56 million. Equity Bancshares had a return on equity of 12.43% and a net margin of 3.75%. On average, research analysts forecast that Equity Bancshares, Inc. will post 4.01 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Equity Bancshares Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, October 15th. Stockholders of record on Monday, September 30th will be paid a dividend of $0.15 per share. This is a boost from Equity Bancshares’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.12. This represents a $0.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.44%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, September 30th. Equity Bancshares’s dividend payout ratio is 100.00%.

Institutional Trading of Equity Bancshares

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in EQBK. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its holdings in Equity Bancshares by 4.2% during the 4th quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 754,999 shares of the bank’s stock worth $25,595,000 after acquiring an additional 30,253 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in Equity Bancshares by 1.5% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 754,069 shares of the bank’s stock worth $25,917,000 after purchasing an additional 10,868 shares in the last quarter. Mendon Capital Advisors Corp increased its holdings in Equity Bancshares by 2,539.9% in the second quarter. Mendon Capital Advisors Corp now owns 350,000 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $12,320,000 after buying an additional 336,742 shares during the last quarter. Foundry Partners LLC raised its stake in Equity Bancshares by 890.4% during the second quarter. Foundry Partners LLC now owns 104,985 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $3,695,000 after buying an additional 94,385 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp lifted its holdings in Equity Bancshares by 5.1% during the 2nd quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 79,831 shares of the bank’s stock worth $2,810,000 after buying an additional 3,838 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 71.80% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of analysts recently weighed in on the company. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods lifted their price target on Equity Bancshares from $38.00 to $41.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 18th. Piper Sandler upped their target price on Equity Bancshares from $38.00 to $40.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, June 13th. Finally, Stephens increased their target price on shares of Equity Bancshares from $39.00 to $45.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 18th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Equity Bancshares has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $39.00.

Equity Bancshares Company Profile

Equity Bancshares, Inc operates as the bank holding company for Equity Bank that provides a range of banking, mortgage banking, and financial services to individual and corporate customers. The company accepts various demand, savings, money market, and time deposits. Its loan products include commercial and industrial, commercial real estate, commercial lines of credit, working capital, term, equipment and aircraft financing, acquisition, expansion and development, borrowing base, real estate construction, homebuilder, agricultural, government guaranteed, and other loan products.