Lakeland Financial Co. Announces Quarterly Dividend of $0.48 (NASDAQ:LKFN)

Lakeland Financial Co. (NASDAQ:LKFN) declared a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, July 9th, Zacks reports. Stockholders of record on Thursday, July 25th will be paid a dividend of 0.48 per share by the financial services provider on Monday, August 5th. This represents a $1.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.77%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, July 25th.

Lakeland Financial has raised its dividend payment by an average of 15.3% annually over the last three years and has raised its dividend every year for the last 13 years. Lakeland Financial has a dividend payout ratio of 53.6% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Lakeland Financial to earn $3.49 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.92 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 55.0%.

Lakeland Financial Stock Performance

Shares of LKFN opened at $69.43 on Tuesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.77 billion, a PE ratio of 19.18 and a beta of 0.67. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $61.70 and its 200 day moving average price is $62.80. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.31, a current ratio of 0.91 and a quick ratio of 0.91. Lakeland Financial has a 12-month low of $44.47 and a 12-month high of $73.22.

Lakeland Financial (NASDAQ:LKFN) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, April 25th. The financial services provider reported $0.88 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.86 by $0.02. Lakeland Financial had a net margin of 22.81% and a return on equity of 14.34%. The company had revenue of $60.03 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $58.10 million. Equities research analysts forecast that Lakeland Financial will post 3.41 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, SVP Kyra E. Clark sold 500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, May 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $62.03, for a total transaction of $31,015.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 7,596 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $471,179.88. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. 3.30% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

About Lakeland Financial

Lakeland Financial Corporation operates as the bank holding company for Lake City Bank that provides various banking products and services in the United States. The company accepts various deposit products, such as noninterest bearing, interest-bearing checking, savings, money market, NOW, and demand deposits.