EARNINGS PER COMMON SHARE

12 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2017

EPS is computed after deducting dividends. The Company has granted restricted share awards with dividend rights that are considered to be participating securities. Accordingly, a portion of the Company’s earnings is allocated to those participating securities in the EPS calculation. Basic earnings per share is computed by dividing income available to common stockholders after the allocation of dividends and undistributed earnings to the participating securities by the weighted average number of common shares outstanding for the period. Diluted earnings per share reflects the potential dilution that could occur if securities or other contracts to issue common stock were exercised, and is computed after giving consideration to the weighted average dilutive effect of the Company’s stock options and after the allocation of earnings to the participating securities. Antidilutive options are disregarded in the EPS calculations.

A reconciliation of the net income and common stock share amounts used in the computation of basic and diluted EPS for the fiscal years ended September 30, 2017, 2016 and 2015 is presented below.



	2017		2016 ⁽¹⁾		2015
	(Dollars in Thousands, Except Share and Per Share Data)
Basic income per common share:
Net income attributable to Meta Financial Group, Inc.	$	44,917	$	33,220	$	18,055
Weighted average common shares outstanding	9,247,092		8,443,956		6,730,086
Basic income per common share	$	4.86	$	3.93	$	2.68

Diluted income per common share:
Net income attributable to Meta Financial Group, Inc.	$	44,917	$	33,220	$	18,055
Weighted average common shares outstanding	9,247,092		8,443,956		6,730,086
Outstanding options - based upon the two-class method	55,652		53,390		61,499
Weighted average diluted common shares outstanding	9,302,744		8,497,346		6,791,585
Diluted income per common share	$	4.83	$	3.91	$	2.66

(1) See Reclassification and Revision of Prior Period Balances under Note 1 Summary of Significant Accounting Policies for additional information describing adjustments made to the Company's EPS calculation. Basic EPS for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2016 of $3.95 was corrected to $3.93 and diluted EPS of $3.92 was corrected to $3.91.

All stock options were considered in computing diluted EPS for the years ended September 30, 2017 and September 30, 2016. Stock options totaling 28,891 were not considered in computing diluted earnings per common share for the year ended September 30, 2015 because they were anti-dilutive.