Peoples Financial Services (NASDAQ:PFIS) and Chain Bridge Bancorp (NYSE:CBNA) Financial Analysis

Peoples Financial Services (NASDAQ:PFIS) and Chain Bridge Bancorp (NYSE:CBNA) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, institutional ownership, valuation, risk, analyst recommendations, earnings and dividends.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations for Peoples Financial Services and Chain Bridge Bancorp, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Peoples Financial Services	0	1	1	0	2.50
Chain Bridge Bancorp	0	2	0	1	2.67

Peoples Financial Services presently has a consensus target price of $53.00, suggesting a potential upside of 6.17%. Chain Bridge Bancorp has a consensus target price of $29.67, suggesting a potential downside of 8.10%. Given Peoples Financial Services’ higher possible upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Peoples Financial Services is more favorable than Chain Bridge Bancorp.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

31.7% of Peoples Financial Services shares are held by institutional investors. 8.0% of Peoples Financial Services shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 25.9% of Chain Bridge Bancorp shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Peoples Financial Services and Chain Bridge Bancorp”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Peoples Financial Services	$229.80 million	2.17	$8.50 million	$3.35	14.90
Chain Bridge Bancorp	$56.65 million	3.74	$20.95 million	$3.78	8.54

Chain Bridge Bancorp has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Peoples Financial Services. Chain Bridge Bancorp is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Peoples Financial Services, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Peoples Financial Services and Chain Bridge Bancorp’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Peoples Financial Services	11.80%	12.20%	1.14%
Chain Bridge Bancorp	35.57%	15.37%	1.40%

Summary

Chain Bridge Bancorp beats Peoples Financial Services on 9 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Peoples Financial Services

Peoples Financial Services Corp. operates as the bank holding company for Peoples Security Bank and Trust Company that provides various commercial and retail banking services. The company accepts money market, negotiable order of withdrawal, savings, individual retirement, demand deposit, and certificates of deposit accounts. It also provides residential real estate, automobile, manufactured housing, personal, and home equity loans; and commercial real estate, working capital, construction, small business administration, and agricultural loans, as well as loans for equipment and other commercial needs, and mineral rights. In addition, the company offers fiduciary and investment services; investment management, IRA trustee, estate administration, living and life insurance trust, trustee under will, guardianship, custodial/IRA custodial, and corporate trust services, as well as pension and profit-sharing plans. Further, it provides wealth management products and services comprising investment portfolio management, estate and business succession planning, annuities, insurance, retirement plan, and tax planning, as well as education funding strategies; and securities, brokerage, and investor services. Additionally, the company offers small business checking and merchant money market accounts, online and telephone banking, business credit cards, merchant line of credit, and financial checkup services; and remote deposit capture, automatic clearing house transaction, cash management, automated teller machine, point of sale transaction, safe deposit box, night depository, direct deposit, and official check services. It serves business, non-profit, governmental, municipal agency, and professional customers, as well as retail customers. Peoples Financial Services Corp. was founded in 1905 and is headquartered in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

About Chain Bridge Bancorp

Chain Bridge Bancorp, Inc. operates as a Delaware-chartered bank holding company for Chain Bridge Bank, National Association that provides commercial and personal banking, and trust services in the United States. Its deposit products include non-interest-bearing and interest-bearing checking accounts, savings accounts, and money market accounts. The company’s loan portfolio comprises of residential and commercial real estate loans, commercial loans, and consumer loans. It also provides treasury management, payments, trusts and estate administration, wealth management, and asset custody services. The company was incorporated in 2006 and is headquartered in McLean, Virginia.