Basswood Capital Reports Activist Position in Astoria Financial Corp (AF)

While discussing the quarterly performance, Monte N. Redman, CEO of Astoria Financial Corp, said, “… we are pleased with the continued growth of our lower cost business banking deposits as well as the fact that, in this low rate environment, our net interest margin increased slightly to 2.35% while many of our competitors have recently experienced margin contraction.”

It has been an excellent year so far for the finance company with its shares improving 22.53% year-to-date. Smart money held a bullish outlook of Astoria Financial Corp (NYSE:AF) at the end of the first quarter with investment positions from 16 hedge funds amounting to $150.11 million. Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group was the largest shareholder of the company in our database with 5.57 million shares valued at $72.10 million at the end of the first quarter, followed by Millennium Management, led by Israel Englander, with 1.76 million shares valued at $22.80 million.

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