Preferred Bank Announces Stock Buyback

LOS ANGELES, May 22, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Preferred Bank (NASDAQ: PFBC), one of the largest independent commercial banks in California, today reported that the shareholders have approved a new $125 million stock repurchase plan. Also, on May 8, 2025, the Bank completed its prior stock repurchase plan. This was the final portion of the Bank’s $150 million repurchase authorized by shareholders in 2023. The final tranche of repurchase activity saw the Bank repurchase 818,059 shares for total consideration of $65.7 million over the first and second quarters of 2025. For the entire $150 million repurchase, the Bank repurchased 2,146,252 shares at an average price of $70.13 per share.

For the new $125 million repurchase, the Bank will be required to gain regulatory approval due to the Bank’s corporate structure of having no holding company. It is expected that these approvals should be obtained in relatively short order.

Chairman and CEO Li Yu stated, “As organic growth has slowed, the Bank’s capital ratios will continue to climb due to our high level of profitability. In this setting, buying back our common stock is a great use of the Bank’s excess capital and an indirect way of returning capital to our shareholders.”

About Preferred Bank

Preferred Bank is one of the larger independent commercial banks headquartered in California. The Bank is chartered by the State of California, and its deposits are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, or FDIC, to the maximum extent permitted by law. The Bank conducts its banking business from its main office in Los Angeles, California, and through twelve full-service branch banking offices in the California cities of Alhambra, Century City, City of Industry, Torrance, Arcadia, Irvine (2 branches), Diamond Bar, Pico Rivera, Tarzana and San Francisco (2 branches) and two branches in New York (Flushing and Manhattan) and one branch in the Houston suburb of Sugar Land, Texas. Additionally, the Bank operates a Loan Production Office in Sunnyvale, California. Preferred Bank offers a broad range of deposit and loan products and services to both commercial and consumer customers. The Bank provides personalized deposit services as well as real estate finance, commercial loans and trade finance to small and mid-sized businesses, entrepreneurs, real estate developers, professionals and high net worth individuals. Although originally founded as a Chinese-American Bank, Preferred Bank now derives most of its customers from the diversified mainstream market but does continue to benefit from the significant migration to California of ethnic Chinese from China and other areas of East Asia.