First Horizon (NYSE:FHN) to Repurchase $1.00 billion in Stock

First Horizon (NYSE:FHN) declared that its Board of Directors has approved a share buyback plan on Tuesday, October 29th, RTT News reports. The company plans to repurchase $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the financial services provider to reacquire up to 10.6% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are often an indication that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

FHN has been the subject of several research reports. Stephens raised their price objective on shares of First Horizon from $18.00 to $20.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 17th. Raymond James cut First Horizon from a “strong-buy” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $18.00 price target for the company. in a report on Thursday, July 18th. Robert W. Baird set a $17.00 price objective on First Horizon in a report on Thursday, October 17th. Barclays increased their price objective on First Horizon from $19.00 to $21.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 17th. Finally, Wedbush cut shares of First Horizon from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and reduced their target price for the company from $20.00 to $17.00 in a research report on Tuesday, September 24th. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, First Horizon currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $17.77.

First Horizon Price Performance

FHN traded down $0.08 during trading on Tuesday, hitting $17.30. 4,397,421 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 6,575,025. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $16.13 and a 200 day moving average price of $15.71. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14, a current ratio of 1.84 and a quick ratio of 0.95. First Horizon has a twelve month low of $10.50 and a twelve month high of $17.68. The company has a market cap of $9.46 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 12.09, a PEG ratio of 1.30 and a beta of 0.88.

First Horizon (NYSE:FHN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 16th. The financial services provider reported $0.42 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.38 by $0.04. The company had revenue of $1.32 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $821.63 million. First Horizon had a return on equity of 9.51% and a net margin of 15.43%. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $0.27 EPS. Equities research analysts forecast that First Horizon will post 1.48 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

First Horizon Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, January 2nd. Stockholders of record on Friday, December 13th will be paid a $0.15 dividend. This represents a $0.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.47%. First Horizon’s payout ratio is currently 41.96%.

About First Horizon

First Horizon Corporation operates as the bank holding company for First Horizon Bank that provides various financial services. The company operates through Regional Banking and Specialty Banking segments. It offers general banking services for consumers, businesses, financial institutions, and governments.