PL Capital Raises Exposure To Metro Bancorp Inc. (METR)

PL Capital, which was formed by Richard Lashley and John Palmer in late 1995, revealed in a new amended filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it currently owns 1.19 million shares of Metro Bancorp Inc. (NASDAQ:METR). The position is equal to 8.4% of common stock outstanding, and represents a slight increase from 1.17 million shares the fund reported previously.

PL Capital focuses on publicly traded U.S. banks and thrifts with market capitalizations ranging from $50 million to $3 billion. Mr. Palmer is a co-founder of PL Capital. Previously, he was worked at KPMG LLP. Mr. Lashley, who is also co-founder of PL Capital, is a former employee of KPMG, where he developed a specialization providing professional accounting and consulting services to numerous thrifts, banks and mortgage companies.

Metro Bancorp Inc. (NASDAQ:METR) is the holding company of Metro Bank, which is a regional financial services retailer based in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The holding company has a market cap of 323.6 million. On Monday, shares of Metro Bancorp Inc. (NASDAQ:METR) traded down 1.97% to $22.91. It has a 52 week high of $23.44 and a 52 week low of $18.45. The consensus average target price is $25.00, and the consensus average recommendation is ‘buy.’

In the filing, PL Capital states that it acquired the company’s stock because it believes the company is undervalued. The fund intends to monitor the performance of the company and the actions of the company’s management and board of directors.

For the first quarter ended March 31, 2014, Metro Bancorp Inc. (NASDAQ:METR) reported net income of $4.9 million, or $0.34 per diluted common share, compared to net income of $3.6 million, or $0.26 per diluted common share, for the first quarter of 2013. The company’s total revenues for the first quarter totaled $30.4 million, up $703,000, or 2%, over total revenues of $29.7 million for the same quarter one year ago.

Aside PL Capital, other large shareholders of Metro Bancorp Inc. (NASDAQ:METR) include Matthew Lindenbaum’s Basswood Capital, owning around 1.40 million shares, and Paul Magidson, Jonathan Cohen. and Ostrom Enders’ Castine Capital Management, which holds 439,356 shares.

Disclosure: none