NORWICH, N.Y. — NBT Bancorp Inc. (NASDAQ: NBTB) recently announced that its board of directors has approved the increase of its quarterly cash dividend to 28 cents per share for the third quarter. That’s up by 3.7 percent from 27 cents a share in the prior quarter. The Norwich–based banking company will pay the dividend […]
NORWICH, N.Y. — NBT Bancorp Inc. (NASDAQ: NBTB) recently announced that its board of directors has approved the increase of its quarterly cash dividend to 28 cents per share for the third quarter.
That’s up by 3.7 percent from 27 cents a share in the prior quarter. The Norwich–based banking company will pay the dividend on Sept. 15, to shareholders of record as of Sept. 1. The dividend represents a yield of about 3.2 percent based on NBT’s current stock price.
NBT Bancorp also reported that its net income rose 37 percent to $40.3 million in the second quarter from $24.7 million a year ago. The increase was primarily due to the estimated impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on expected credit losses in 2020, which resulted in a second-quarter 2020 provision for loan losses of $18.8 million. The banking company’s earnings per share increased almost 36 percent to 92 cents in this year’s second quarter from 56 cents in the second quarter of 2020.
“Through the first half of 2021 momentum at NBT has continued to build,” NBT President and CEO John H. Watt, Jr. said in the company’s July 26 earnings report. “We continue to prioritize our disciplined approach to the allocation of capital, including the advancement of our New England expansion with our first full-service locations in Connecticut opening in the second quarter. Our continued strong capital generation and our commitment to enhancing long-term shareholder value resulted in our decision to increase our quarterly dividend to $0.28 per share, a 3.7% increase.”
NBT Bancorp is a financial holding company with total assets of $11.5 billion as of March 31. The banking company primarily operates through NBT Bank, N.A. — a full-service community bank with 140 branches in New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, and Connecticut — and through two financial-services companies: EPIC Retirement Plan Services and NBT Insurance Agency.
