Yes, you read that correctly, a bank stock paid a $100 special plus their regular quarterly dividend of $75 per share, paid January 2, 2007 to shareholders of record December 1, 2006. Obviously, to pay dividends like this, the price per share would be very high, and this company is definitely a member of the "high priced share club." A couple of websites, stockmarkettrivia.com and investmenttrivia.com, list several high priced stocks that trade for over $1,000 per share. In addition, back in November, I posted an article on Highest Priced Shares.
So what is the name of the stock? Mechanics Bank (MCHB.OB), which is number three on my list [after Indians Inc. (INDN.PK)], or number two [after Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A)] if you only look at the stocks that are traded fairly regularly, as Indian Inc. hasn't traded since November 1.
Back to Mechanics Bank, based in Richmond California, which closed at $19,600 per share today [1/12/07] on a volume of 6, not 600 or 6000 but 6, down $10 from yesterday. The stock is up from $18,750 from January of 2006, the low for the year. They have paid $75 per quarter PLUS a $100 special dividend every year for the last four years.
Profit margin for the bank is approximately 23% and operating margin is about 49%. Interestingly, total non-accrual loans represented only .01% of total loans. The stock is trading at 1.4 times book value per share.
Currently author does not own any of the above.
1 comment:
Quite interesting. There are only 19K shares outstanding, so the market cap is relatively small.
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