Hey, I'm dabbling a little more in this in the past couple of weeks. I'm sick of BHRB's new direction, so here I am. Theoretically, it looks reasonably cheap, they pay a fair dividend, and it seems to me that their location puts their branches somewhat in the path of northern virginia's ex-urban sprawl if/when that resumes, so it seems a reasonably prospect in the longer term for an acquisition target.
But management worries me. Dividend cuts are always bad, in my opinion. Yes, they might be the right thing to do at the time, but usually (esp in banking) it also means that management either didn't see something coming that they should have, or else they had their rear end hanging out too far when working off of whatever their underlying assumptions were, or both.
Do these guys have hard-charging talent, or is it the same old fauquier/warrenton good-ol-boy network? And if there are hard chargers and talent, are they the kind who actually understands maximising shareholder value and returns, or are they the type that direct their energies toward growing the organization, because it's better for their careers to run a larger organization? Because growing the organization and returning value to your company's owners are not the same thing.
ANSWER ME! I KNOW YOU READ THIS!