First Citizens BancShares Stock Has More Than Doubled Over the Past Year. Can It Keep Going?
First Citizens BancShares (NASDAQ: FCNCA), a nearly $54 billion asset regional bank based in North Carolina, has seen the price of its shares more than double over the last year from roughly $400 per share to now around $847. Even with the impressive run the banking sector has been on this year, this type of growth far exceeds the general sector. With such a big run up, can First Citizens shares keep appreciating to new highs?
The big reason First Citizens' shares began to soar during the pandemic is because the bank announced that it plans to acquire another regional bank called CIT Group (NYSE: CIT), a $61 billion asset bank with most of its branches in California, as well as a few branches in other states like Arizona, Nebraska, and Nevada. The acquisition would bring First Citizens over $100 billion in assets and also give the bank a substantial commercial lending portfolio from CIT. First Citizens can likely improve the profitability of that portfolio with its low-cost deposit base.
Source Fool.com
