Financial Survey: Flushing Financial (NASDAQ:FFIC) vs. Lake Shore Bancorp (NASDAQ:LSBK)

Lake Shore Bancorp (NASDAQ:LSBK) and Flushing Financial (NASDAQ:FFIC) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, earnings, dividends, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, risk and profitability.

Dividends

Lake Shore Bancorp pays an annual dividend of $0.36 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.1%. Flushing Financial pays an annual dividend of $0.88 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.7%. Lake Shore Bancorp pays out 30.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Flushing Financial pays out 88.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Lake Shore Bancorp and Flushing Financial”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Lake Shore Bancorp	$39.56 million	3.38	$7.27 million	$1.18	14.41
Flushing Financial	$489.63 million	1.07	$18.88 million	$1.00	15.48

Flushing Financial has higher revenue and earnings than Lake Shore Bancorp. Lake Shore Bancorp is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Flushing Financial, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Volatility & Risk

Lake Shore Bancorp has a beta of 0.28, indicating that its stock price is 72% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Flushing Financial has a beta of 0.74, indicating that its stock price is 26% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and target prices for Lake Shore Bancorp and Flushing Financial, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Lake Shore Bancorp	0	1	0	0	2.00
Flushing Financial	0	3	1	0	2.25

Flushing Financial has a consensus target price of $16.80, suggesting a potential upside of 8.49%. Given Flushing Financial’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Flushing Financial is more favorable than Lake Shore Bancorp.

Profitability

This table compares Lake Shore Bancorp and Flushing Financial’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Lake Shore Bancorp	20.23%	6.30%	1.11%
Flushing Financial	7.15%	6.25%	0.50%

Insider & Institutional Ownership

8.7% of Lake Shore Bancorp shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 67.1% of Flushing Financial shares are owned by institutional investors. 8.4% of Lake Shore Bancorp shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 5.7% of Flushing Financial shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Summary

Flushing Financial beats Lake Shore Bancorp on 9 of the 16 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Lake Shore Bancorp

Lake Shore Bancorp, Inc. operates as a savings and loan holding company for Lake Shore Servings Bank. It offers personal services such as checking, savings, lending, banking, debit card, e-services, and online banking; and business services including deposit products, commercial loans, and business e-statements. The company was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in Dunkirk, NY.

About Flushing Financial

Flushing Financial Corporation operates as the bank holding company for Flushing Bank that provides banking products and services primarily to consumers, businesses, and governmental units. It offers various deposit products, including checking and savings accounts, money market accounts, non-interest bearing demand accounts, NOW accounts, and certificates of deposit. The company also provides mortgage loans secured by multi-family residential, commercial real estate, one-to-four family mixed-use property, one-to-four family residential property, and commercial business loans; construction loans; small business administration loans and other small business loans; mortgage loan surrogates, such as mortgage-backed securities; and consumer loans, including overdraft lines of credit, as well as the United States government securities, corporate fixed-income securities, and other marketable securities. It operates full-service banking offices in Queens, Nassau, Suffolk, Kings, and New York counties, New York; and an internet branch under the iGObanking and BankPurely brands. Flushing Financial Corporation was founded in 1929 and is based in Uniondale, New York.