Back to top

Image: Bigstock

BancorpSouth (BXS) Rewards Shareholders With New Buyback Plan

Read MoreHide Full Article

BancorpSouth Bank recently announced a new share-repurchase plan. The board of directors has approved the repurchase of about 6 million shares of the company’s common stock. The new program will commence from Jan 4, 2021 and conclude on Dec 31, 2021.

BancorpSouth already has a share-repurchase program in place, announced last December. Nonetheless, the plan was suspended in the first quarter of 2020 in order to preserve liquidity amid the business disruptions stemming from the coronavirus pandemic. The program authorized the repurchase of 8 million shares through December 2020, out of which 4.7 million shares remain available for repurchase. The company may or may not repurchase these shares on or prior to Dec 31, 2020.

Dan Rollins, chairman and chief executive officer of BancorpSouth said, "While we currently have no specific determined timeline for resuming share repurchases, the share repurchase authorization is a part of our normal capital planning process. We will continue to monitor the economic environment and make prudent decisions regarding capital management and deployment."

BancorpSouth has also been paying out regular quarterly dividends. The company has a history of increasing its dividend annually since 2013, with the latest one announced in October. It raised quarterly the cash dividend by 2.7% to 19 cents per share. Considering last day’s closing price of $27.65 per share, the dividend yield currently stands at 4.03%.

As of Sep 30, 2020, the company holds a debt of $1 trillion, and cash and due from banks of $306 million, which has been volatile for the past few quarters. Despite a low cash level, its earnings before interest and tax are 15.7 times the interest expenses and have increased with some volatility in the past few quarters. With a record of continued earnings growth, BancorpSouth's capital-deployment activities look sustainable and will continue to enhance shareholder value.

In the past year, shares of BancorpSouth have depreciated 11.9% compared with the 5.3% decline of the industry it belongs to.

Currently, BancorpSouth sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Other Banks Taking Similar Actions

In the past few months, several firms, including Home Bancorp, Inc. (HBCP - Free Report) , HarborOne Bancorp, Inc. (HONE - Free Report) and Columbia Financial, Inc. (CLBK - Free Report) , have announced new share-repurchase authorizations. Home Bancorp’s board of directors has approved the repurchase of up to 444,000 shares of the company’s common stock.

HarborOne Bancorp’s board has adopted a share-repurchase program, under which it has authorized a buyback of up to 2.92 million shares, while Columbia Financial has announced an authorization to repurchase up to 5 million shares.

Just Released: Zacks’ 7 Best Stocks for Today

Experts extracted 7 stocks from the list of 220 Zacks Rank #1 Strong Buys that has beaten the market more than 2X over with a stunning average gain of +24.4% per year.

These 7 were selected because of their superior potential for immediate breakout.

See these time-sensitive tickers now >>


See More Zacks Research for These Tickers


Normally $25 each - click below to receive one report FREE:


Home Bancorp, Inc. (HBCP) - free report >>

HarborOne Bancorp, Inc. (HONE) - free report >>

Columbia Financial (CLBK) - free report >>

Published in