Fulton (FULT) Stock Gains 4.6% on New Share Repurchase Plan
Shares of Fulton Financial Corporation FULT gained 4.6% in response to the announcement of a share buyback program. The company’s board of directors has approved the repurchase of up to $100 million worth of shares starting Jan 1, 2023, with an expiration date of Dec 31, 2023.
As permitted by securities laws and other legal requirements and subject to market conditions and other factors, the purchases may be made from time to time in the open market or privately negotiated transactions, including without limitation, through accelerated share repurchase transactions.
In March 2022, the company announced a share buyback program authorizing the repurchase of $75 million worth of shares, which is set to expire by the end of this month.
In addition to announcing the share repurchase authorization, FULT declared a quarterly cash dividend of 15 cents per share. The dividend will be paid out on Jan 13, 2023, to shareholders of record as of Jan 3.
Fulton pays regular quarterly cash dividends. The last dividend hike of 7.1% was announced this April.
Moreover, last month, the company announced a special dividend of 6 cents per share. The dividend was paid out on Dec 15 to shareholders on record as of Dec 1. FULT has been providing special dividends annually since 2014.
Currently, FULT has a five-year annualized dividend growth of 5.5%. The company's payout ratio is 36% of earnings.
Fulton has a solid balance sheet and liquidity position. As of Sep 30, 2022, the company’s total borrowings were $1.42 billion while cash and cash equivalents were $528 million. Also, the company maintains an investment-grade credit rating of Baa1 and a stable outlook from Moody’s Investor Service.
Its earnings strength indicates that Fulton will be able to sustain efficient capital deployment activities in the future, thus enhancing shareholder value.
Over the past six months, shares of FULT have gained 19.9% against the industry’s 3.2% decline.
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Currently, Fulton carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Capital Deployment Actions by Other Firms
KeyCorp’s KEY board of directors approved a hike in its quarterly cash dividend. The new dividend of 20.5 cents per share represents an increase of 5.1% from the prior payout. The dividend was paid out on Dec 15 to shareholders on record as of Nov 29.
KEY has a record of continuously raising dividends. Prior to this hike, the company announced a dividend hike in November 2021. The dividend was increased from 18.5 cents per share to 19.5 cents.
WesBanco, Inc.’s WSBC board of directors approved a hike in the quarterly cash dividend. The new dividend of 35 cents per share indicates an increase of 2.9% from the previous dividend of 34 cents. The dividend will be paid out on Jan 3, 2023, to shareholders of record as of Dec 9, 2022.
WSBC has a record of continuously raising dividends. The latest dividend hike is the 16th time the company has increased its quarterly dividend since 2010.
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