Colony Bankcorp (NASDAQ:CBAN) vs. West Coast Community Bancorp (OTCMKTS:SCZC) Financial Survey

Colony Bankcorp (NASDAQ:CBAN) and West Coast Community Bancorp (OTCMKTS:SCZC) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, profitability, earnings, dividends, valuation, risk and institutional ownership.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current recommendations for Colony Bankcorp and West Coast Community Bancorp, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Colony Bankcorp	0	0	1	0	3.00
West Coast Community Bancorp	0	0	0	0	0.00

Colony Bankcorp currently has a consensus target price of $21.00, indicating a potential upside of 18.04%. Given Colony Bankcorp’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, research analysts plainly believe Colony Bankcorp is more favorable than West Coast Community Bancorp.

Risk & Volatility

Colony Bankcorp has a beta of 0.67, meaning that its share price is 33% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, West Coast Community Bancorp has a beta of 0.49, meaning that its share price is 51% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Dividends

Colony Bankcorp pays an annual dividend of $0.46 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.6%. West Coast Community Bancorp pays an annual dividend of $0.80 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.9%. Colony Bankcorp pays out 29.1% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. West Coast Community Bancorp pays out 23.6% 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. Colony Bankcorp has increased its dividend for 7 consecutive years. Colony Bankcorp is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

Profitability

This table compares Colony Bankcorp and West Coast Community Bancorp’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Colony Bankcorp	13.51%	9.64%	0.85%
West Coast Community Bancorp	23.91%	N/A	N/A

Insider & Institutional Ownership

50.4% of Colony Bankcorp shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 9.7% of West Coast Community Bancorp shares are owned by institutional investors. 6.6% of Colony Bankcorp shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Colony Bankcorp and West Coast Community Bancorp”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Colony Bankcorp	$121.88 million	2.55	$23.87 million	$1.58	11.26
West Coast Community Bancorp	$123.69 million	3.60	$29.58 million	$3.39	12.40

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

Summary

Colony Bankcorp beats West Coast Community Bancorp on 11 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Colony Bankcorp

Colony Bankcorp, Inc. operates as the bank holding company for Colony Bank that provides various banking products and services to commercial and consumer customers. The company offers deposit products, including demand, savings, and time deposits. It also provides loans to small and medium-sized businesses; residential and commercial construction, and land development loans; commercial real estate loans; commercial loans; agri-business and production loans; residential mortgage loans; home equity loans; and consumer loans. In addition, the company offers internet banking services, electronic bill payment services, safe deposit box rentals, telephone banking, credit and debit card services, and remote depository products, as well as access to a network of ATMs. The company was founded in 1975 and is headquartered in Fitzgerald, Georgia.

About West Coast Community Bancorp

West Coast Community Bancorp operates as the bank holding company for Santa Cruz County Bank that provides a range of commercial and personal banking services to residents and businesses in the United States. It offers checking, savings, money market, certificate of deposits, and health savings accounts; and individual retirement account and retirement plans. The company also provides lending products, including real estate commercial property, construction, asset-based, lines of credit, SBA loans, 504 loan program, business and industry, farm services agency, agricultural, and wine industry lending. In addition, it provides debit and credit cards, merchant services, online and mobile banking, remote deposit services, wire and ACH manager, treasury management, payment, and cash management services. West Coast Community Bancorp was founded in 2004 and is headquartered in Santa Cruz, California.