Citizens (NASDAQ:CIZN) versus Community West Bancshares (NASDAQ:CWBC) Financial Survey

Community West Bancshares (NASDAQ:CWBC) and Citizens (NASDAQ:CIZN) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, profitability, earnings, analyst recommendations, valuation, risk and dividends.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Community West Bancshares and Citizens”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Community West Bancshares	$46.27 million	7.15	$7.67 million	$0.65	26.72
Citizens	$40.95 million	1.13	$5.49 million	$0.80	10.30

Community West Bancshares has higher revenue and earnings than Citizens. Citizens is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Community West Bancshares, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Community West Bancshares and Citizens’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Community West Bancshares	4.59%	7.90%	0.78%
Citizens	7.00%	11.28%	0.37%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for Community West Bancshares and Citizens, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Community West Bancshares	0	1	2	0	2.67
Citizens	0	0	0	0	0.00

Community West Bancshares presently has a consensus price target of $20.67, suggesting a potential upside of 18.98%. Given Community West Bancshares’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe Community West Bancshares is more favorable than Citizens.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

33.8% of Community West Bancshares shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 9.7% of Citizens shares are owned by institutional investors. 10.6% of Community West Bancshares shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 8.9% of Citizens shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Dividends

Community West Bancshares pays an annual dividend of $0.48 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.8%. Citizens pays an annual dividend of $0.08 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.0%. Community West Bancshares pays out 73.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Citizens pays out 10.0% 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.

Risk and Volatility

Community West Bancshares has a beta of 0.78, suggesting that its stock price is 22% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Citizens has a beta of 0.02, suggesting that its stock price is 98% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Community West Bancshares beats Citizens on 12 of the 16 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Community West Bancshares

Community West Bancshares operates as the bank holding company for Community West Bank, N.A. that provides various financial products and services in California. The company offers deposit products, such as checking accounts, savings accounts, money market accounts, and fixed rate and fixed maturity certificates of deposits; and cash management products. It also provides commercial, commercial real estate, consumer, manufactured housing, and small business administration loans, as well as agricultural loans for real estate and operating lines; home equity lines of credit collateralized by residential real estate; single family real estate loans; and installment loans consisting of automobile and general-purpose loans. The company serves small to medium-sized businesses and their owners, professionals, high-net worth individuals, and non-profit organizations. Community West Bancshares was founded in 1989 and is headquartered in Goleta, California.

About Citizens

Citizens Holding Company operates as the bank holding company for The Citizens Bank of Philadelphia that provides various commercial and personal banking products and services. It offers demand deposits; and savings and time deposit accounts. The company also provides secured and unsecured loans; mortgage loans; single and multi-family housing, farm, residential and commercial construction, and commercial real estate loans; commercial, industrial, and agricultural production loans; and consumer loans, as well as issues letters of credit. In addition, it offers personal and corporate trust services; credit life and title insurance; and online and mobile banking services. The company was founded in 1908 and is headquartered in Philadelphia, Mississippi.