Valley National Boosts Shareholder Returns With New 25M Buyback Plan

Valley National Bancorp’s VLY board of directors announced a new stock repurchase program, authorizing the buyback of up to 25 million shares of its common stock. The new program will become effective on April 27, 2026, and will remain in place through April 27, 2028.

This authorization will replace the company’s existing repurchase program, which is scheduled to expire on April 26. In 2025, VLY repurchased 6.1 million shares of common stock at an average price of $10.41 per share. As of Dec. 31, 2025, approximately 18.9 million shares remained available for repurchase under the existing authorization.

Apart from its stock repurchase initiatives, Valley National has consistently maintained quarterly dividend payments of 11 cents per share since 2018. Based on yesterday’s closing price of $12.87, the company’s annualized dividend yield stands at 3.41%. It has a dividend payout ratio of 44%, which provides stable income to investors and supports future growth.

As of Dec. 31, 2025, Valley National had total debt of $3 billion (the majority being long-term in nature) and $1.58 billion in cash and due from banks and interest-bearing deposits with banks. Supported by a BBB- investment-grade credit rating from S&P Global Ratings on its senior unsecured debt, the company remains well-positioned to comfortably meet its near-term debt obligations. This financial strength also supports the continuation of efficient capital distribution initiatives.

VLY’s Price Performance & Zacks Rank

VLY shares have rallied 13.4% in the past three months, compared with the industry’s growth of 9%.
 

Currently, VLY carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Share Buyback Announcements by Other Banks

In February, WaFd, Inc.’s WAFD board approved an increase of 4.5 million shares under its repurchase authorization, raising the total currently authorized amount to 10 million shares.

Over the last seven quarters, WAFD repurchased 5.8 million shares at a weighted average price of $29.45, representing approximately 7% of the shares outstanding as of March 31, 2024. As of Dec. 31, 2025, nearly 6.3 million shares remained available for repurchase under the existing authorization.

In January, Zions Bancorporation ZION announced that its board of directors approved a share repurchase program of up to $75 million of its common stock for the first quarter of 2026. 

Along with this, ZION announced a quarterly cash dividend of 45 cents per share, which was paid out on Feb. 19, 2026, to shareholders of record as of Feb. 12, 2026.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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