Lakeland Financial (NASDAQ:LKFN) Announces Earnings Results, Beats Expectations By $0.05 EPS

Lakeland Financial (NASDAQ:LKFN) issued its quarterly earnings results on Friday. The financial services provider reported $0.94 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.89 by $0.05, Zacks reports. Lakeland Financial had a net margin of 22.85% and a return on equity of 13.64%.

Lakeland Financial Trading Down 0.7 %

Shares of NASDAQ LKFN opened at $66.38 on Friday. Lakeland Financial has a 1-year low of $57.45 and a 1-year high of $78.61. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $70.94 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $67.58. The firm has a market cap of $1.69 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.24 and a beta of 0.69.

Lakeland Financial Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, February 5th. Stockholders of record on Saturday, January 25th will be given a dividend of $0.50 per share. This is an increase from Lakeland Financial’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.48. This represents a $2.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.01%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, January 24th. Lakeland Financial’s dividend payout ratio is currently 51.95%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Lakeland Financial

In other Lakeland Financial news, EVP Eric H. Ottinger sold 3,959 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $73.50, for a total value of $290,986.50. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 32,475 shares in the company, valued at $2,386,912.50. This represents a 10.87 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Insiders have sold a total of 4,150 shares of company stock valued at $305,327 over the last three months. 3.30% of the stock is currently owned by 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.