First Foundation Inc. Plans Quarterly Dividend of $0.01 (NASDAQ:FFWM)

First Foundation Inc. (NASDAQ:FFWM) announced a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, April 23rd, Wall Street Journal reports. Investors of record on Monday, May 6th will be paid a dividend of 0.01 per share by the bank on Thursday, May 16th. This represents a $0.04 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.73%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, May 3rd.

First Foundation has a dividend payout ratio of 3.8% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect First Foundation to earn $0.91 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.04 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 4.4%.

First Foundation Trading Down 0.4 %

NASDAQ FFWM opened at $5.46 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.52, a current ratio of 1.05 and a quick ratio of 1.05. The stock has a market capitalization of $308.54 million, a P/E ratio of 28.84 and a beta of 1.29. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $7.19 and its two-hundred day moving average is $7.48. First Foundation has a 12 month low of $3.69 and a 12 month high of $11.47.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

FFWM has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. Raymond James upgraded shares of First Foundation from an “outperform” rating to a “strong-buy” rating and upped their price objective for the stock from $9.50 to $12.00 in a report on Friday, January 5th. StockNews.com upgraded First Foundation from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, April 26th. Finally, Wedbush lowered their price target on First Foundation from $8.00 to $7.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, April 26th.

Insider Transactions at First Foundation

In related news, Chairman Ulrich E. Keller, Jr. sold 25,000 shares of First Foundation stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 29th. The shares were sold at an average price of $8.16, for a total value of $204,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chairman now owns 1,230,622 shares in the company, valued at $10,041,875.52. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Corporate insiders own 8.30% of the company’s stock.

About First Foundation

First Foundation Inc, through its subsidiaries, provides banking services, investment advisory, wealth management, and trust services to individuals, businesses, and other organizations in the United States. The company operates in two segments, Banking and Wealth Management. It offers a range of deposit products, including personal and business checking accounts, savings accounts, interest-bearing demand deposit accounts, money market accounts, and time certificate of deposits; and loan products consisting of multifamily and single family residential real estate loans, commercial real estate loans, commercial term loans, and line of credits, as well as consumer loans, such as personal installment loans and line of credits, and home equity line of credits.