Piper Sandler lowered the firm's price target on Meridian Bank to $21 from $22 and keeps an Overweight rating on the shares. The firm notes the company reported revised Q1 earnings due to a loan status change from the lead participant bank for one CRE exposure since Meridian's original earnings release on April 23, 2026. This drove a higher than previously reported provision that lowers core EPS and includes $3.9M higher NCOs. Piper believes this is an idiosyncratic exposure, and not indicative of the rest of CRE book. It continues to expect credit to turn, but notes that stubbornly high NPA levels were revised higher.
