HBT Financial (NASDAQ:HBT) Board of Directors Approves Stock Repurchase Plan

HBT Financial (NASDAQ:HBT) announced that its board has authorized a stock buyback plan on Wednesday, December 18th, RTT News reports. The company plans to buyback $15.00 million in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization permits the company to reacquire up to 2.1% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are generally an indication that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts have weighed in on the stock. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods boosted their target price on shares of HBT Financial from $25.00 to $27.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, December 4th. DA Davidson cut shares of HBT Financial from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and reduced their price objective for the stock from $26.00 to $24.00 in a research note on Wednesday, September 25th. Finally, Piper Sandler lowered their target price on HBT Financial from $25.00 to $24.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, October 22nd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $24.40.

HBT Financial Trading Down 0.9 %

HBT opened at $22.04 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $695.56 million, a PE ratio of 10.02 and a beta of 0.87. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20, a current ratio of 0.82 and a quick ratio of 0.82. HBT Financial has a fifty-two week low of $17.75 and a fifty-two week high of $25.35. The company’s 50-day moving average is $23.17 and its 200 day moving average is $21.90.

HBT Financial (NASDAQ:HBT) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Monday, October 21st. The company reported $0.61 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.58 by $0.03. HBT Financial had a return on equity of 14.70% and a net margin of 24.68%. The business had revenue of $56.44 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $57.05 million. As a group, research analysts predict that HBT Financial will post 2.33 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

HBT Financial Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, November 12th. Stockholders of record on Monday, November 4th were paid a dividend of $0.19 per share. This represents a $0.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.45%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, November 4th. HBT Financial’s payout ratio is 34.55%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other HBT Financial news, Chairman Fred L. Drake sold 2,200 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $23.86, for a total transaction of $52,492.00. Following the sale, the chairman now directly owns 91,470 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,182,474.20. This represents a 2.35 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. In the last ninety days, insiders have sold 14,498 shares of company stock valued at $351,985. 59.80% of the stock is owned by insiders.

About HBT Financial

HBT Financial, Inc operates as the bank holding company for Heartland Bank and Trust Company that provides business, commercial, and retail banking products and services to individuals, businesses, and municipal entities in Central and Northeastern Illinois, and Eastern Iowa. The company's deposits accounts consist of noninterest-bearing demand deposits, interest-bearing transaction accounts, money market accounts, savings accounts, certificates of deposits, health savings accounts, and individual retirement accounts.