Guaranty Bancshares (NASDAQ:GNTY) and Banc of California (NYSE:BANC) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, risk, dividends, profitability, analyst recommendations, earnings and valuation.
Profitability
This table compares Guaranty Bancshares and Banc of California's net margins, return on equity and return on assets.
| Net Margins | Return on Equity | Return on Assets |
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Guaranty Bancshares | 20.06% | 13.54% | 1.40% |
Banc of California | 1.62% | 3.88% | 0.34% |
Risk and Volatility
Guaranty Bancshares has a beta of 0.43, indicating that its stock price is 57% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Banc of California has a beta of 1.85, indicating that its stock price is 85% more volatile than the S&P 500.
Analyst Ratings
This is a breakdown of current recommendations and price targets for Guaranty Bancshares and Banc of California, as provided by MarketBeat.com.
| Sell Ratings | Hold Ratings | Buy Ratings | Strong Buy Ratings | Rating Score |
---|
Guaranty Bancshares | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2.00 |
Banc of California | 0 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 2.80 |
Guaranty Bancshares presently has a consensus target price of $32.00, indicating a potential upside of 4.92%. Banc of California has a consensus target price of $17.30, indicating a potential downside of 6.79%. Given Guaranty Bancshares' higher probable upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Guaranty Bancshares is more favorable than Banc of California.
Institutional and Insider Ownership
20.1% of Guaranty Bancshares shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 87.4% of Banc of California shares are owned by institutional investors. 29.6% of Guaranty Bancshares shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 10.9% of Banc of California shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.
Dividends
Guaranty Bancshares pays an annual dividend of $0.73 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.4%. Banc of California pays an annual dividend of $0.24 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.3%. Guaranty Bancshares pays out 32.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Banc of California pays out 30.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. Guaranty Bancshares has increased its dividend for 3 consecutive years and Banc of California has increased its dividend for 1 consecutive years. Guaranty Bancshares is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.
Valuation & Earnings
This table compares Guaranty Bancshares and Banc of California's gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.
| Gross Revenue | Price/Sales Ratio | Net Income | Earnings Per Share | Price/Earnings Ratio |
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Guaranty Bancshares | $119.53 million | 3.08 | $26.28 million | $2.25 | 13.56 |
Banc of California | $403.23 million | 2.31 | $23.76 million | $0.79 | 23.49 |
Guaranty Bancshares has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Banc of California. Guaranty Bancshares is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Banc of California, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Summary
Guaranty Bancshares beats Banc of California on 11 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.