雅虎香港財經 Veritex (VBTX) Announces Buyback Plan, Portfolio Restructuring
Veritex Holdings, Inc. VBTX announced that its board of directors authorized a share buyback program to repurchase up to $50 million shares of the company’s outstanding common stock. The buyback program will expire on Mar 31, 2025.
VBTX expects to fund the share repurchases using cash on hand and cash from operations.
Prior to this, the company’s board of directors authorized a share repurchase plan of $50 million on Jan 28, 2019, which was subsequently increased by $50 million in September 2019, $75 million in December 2019 and $75 million in September 2021. This resulted in an aggregate authorization of $250 million of VBTX’s common stock. However, no shares were repurchased in 2022 and 2023.
In addition to share buybacks, the company pays regular quarterly dividends. In the last five years, VBTX increased dividends twice. Such efforts reflect the company’s commitment to returning value to shareholders.
This aside, in March, the company completed the restructuring of its available-for-sale ("AFS") debt security portfolio. Particularly, it sold $120.1 million of lower-yielding AFS debt securities at amortized cost, with a yield of 3.11%. This resulted in a pre-tax loss of $6.5 million. Sale proceeds of $115.9 million were reinvested in higher-yielding AFS securities yielding 6.24%.
As of fourth-quarter 2023, the company’s investment portfolio accounted for 10.1% of the total assets. Of this, 85.6% consisted of AFS securities, amounting to $1.1 billion.
In the past six months month, VBTX shares have gained 16.2% compared with the industry's rise of 25.2%.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Currently, the company carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).
You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Share Buyback Plans of Other Banks
Axos Financial, Inc. AX announced an additional share repurchase program. Per the plan, the company is authorized to buy back up to $100 million worth of shares. There is no specific start or end date for the newly announced plan.
AX’s new share buyback plan supplements the existing repurchase program, which was approved on Apr 26, 2023. As part of the existing plan, it has almost $20 million worth of authorization remaining. AX repurchased $83.2 million worth of shares in the first half of fiscal 2024.
Zions Bancorporation ZION announced a share repurchase plan for 2024. The plan authorizes the company to buy back up to $35 million worth of shares.
ZION repurchased shares in each of the last three years, indicating an impressive capital distribution plan on the back of anticipated organic growth. The bank repurchased 0.9 million shares in the first nine months of 2023 but refrained from repurchasing any shares in the fourth quarter due to macroeconomic uncertainties.
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