Reviewing Berkshire Hills Bancorp (NYSE:BHLB) & NB Bancorp (NASDAQ:NBBK)

Berkshire Hills Bancorp (NYSE:BHLB) and NB Bancorp (NASDAQ:NBBK) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, dividends, profitability, risk and earnings.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

83.1% of Berkshire Hills Bancorp shares are held by institutional investors. 1.0% of Berkshire Hills Bancorp shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 1.7% of NB Bancorp shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current recommendations for Berkshire Hills Bancorp and NB Bancorp, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Berkshire Hills Bancorp	0	4	1	0	2.20
NB Bancorp	0	0	1	0	3.00

Berkshire Hills Bancorp presently has a consensus price target of $26.50, indicating a potential downside of 3.07%. NB Bancorp has a consensus price target of $17.00, indicating a potential downside of 2.30%. Given NB Bancorp’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe NB Bancorp is more favorable than Berkshire Hills Bancorp.

Profitability

This table compares Berkshire Hills Bancorp and NB Bancorp’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Berkshire Hills Bancorp	3.37%	8.61%	0.70%
NB Bancorp	N/A	N/A	N/A

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Berkshire Hills Bancorp and NB Bancorp’s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Berkshire Hills Bancorp	$619.08 million	1.91	$69.60 million	$0.50	54.68
NB Bancorp	$236.08 million	3.15	$9.82 million	N/A	N/A

Berkshire Hills Bancorp has higher revenue and earnings than NB Bancorp.

Summary

Berkshire Hills Bancorp beats NB Bancorp on 6 of the 10 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Berkshire Hills Bancorp

Berkshire Hills Bancorp, Inc. operates as the bank holding company for Berkshire Bank that provides various banking products and services in the United States. The company provides various deposit accounts, including demand deposit, interest-bearing checking, regular savings, money market savings, time certificates of deposit, and retirement deposit accounts. It offers loans, such as commercial real estate, commercial and industrial, residential mortgage, and consumer loans. In addition, the company provides wealth management services comprising investment management, trust administration, tax return preparation, and financial planning; and investment products and brokerage services. Further, it offers commercial cash management, online banking and mobile banking, small business banking, and asset based lending services; and debit cards and other electronic fee producing payment services to transaction account customers. It serves its products to personal, commercial, non-profit, and municipal deposit customers. Berkshire Hills Bancorp, Inc. was founded in 1846 and is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.

About NB Bancorp

NB Bancorp, Inc. focuses on operating as a bank holding company for Needham Bank that provides various banking products and services in Greater Boston metropolitan area and surrounding communities in Massachusetts, eastern Connecticut, southern New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. The company offers various deposits, including certificate of deposit, individual retirement, money market, savings, NOW, demand deposit, and interest-bearing and noninterest-bearing checking accounts; and commercial real estate and multifamily, one- to four-family residential real estate, construction and land development, commercial and industrial, and consumer loans, as well as home equity loans and lines of credit. It also invests in securities consisting of U.S. treasury and federal agency securities, government-sponsored residential mortgage-backed securities, municipal bonds, and corporate bonds. The company was founded in 1892 and is based in Needham, Massachusetts.