Reviewing South Atlantic Bancshares (OTCMKTS:SABK) and Customers Bancorp (NYSE:CUBI)

South Atlantic Bancshares (OTCMKTS:SABK) and Customers Bancorp (NYSE:CUBI) are both finance companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, profitability, dividends, risk and earnings.

Volatility and Risk

South Atlantic Bancshares has a beta of 0.15, indicating that its share price is 85% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Customers Bancorp has a beta of 1.61, indicating that its share price is 61% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

13.3% of South Atlantic Bancshares shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 89.3% of Customers Bancorp shares are held by institutional investors. 6.9% of Customers Bancorp shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings and price targets for South Atlantic Bancshares and Customers Bancorp, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
South Atlantic Bancshares	0	0	0	1	4.00
Customers Bancorp	0	5	5	1	2.64

Customers Bancorp has a consensus target price of $83.67, suggesting a potential upside of 11.53%. Given Customers Bancorp’s higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Customers Bancorp is more favorable than South Atlantic Bancshares.

Profitability

This table compares South Atlantic Bancshares and Customers Bancorp’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
South Atlantic Bancshares	N/A	N/A	N/A
Customers Bancorp	12.43%	13.24%	1.05%

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares South Atlantic Bancshares and Customers Bancorp”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
South Atlantic Bancshares	$93.28 million	1.57	$14.21 million	$1.89	10.29
Customers Bancorp	$1.39 billion	1.85	$181.47 million	$4.93	15.22

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

Summary

Customers Bancorp beats South Atlantic Bancshares on 13 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About South Atlantic Bancshares

South Atlantic Bancshares, Inc. operates as the bank holding company for South Atlantic Bank that provides consumer and commercial banking products and services to individuals, small businesses, and corporations in South Carolina. The company offers checking, money market, and saving accounts, as well as certificate of deposit, individual retirement, and health saving accounts; personal, auto, and recreation loans, as well as home equity and ready reserve overdraft line of credits, and commercial lending products; and credit cards. It also provides cash management and merchant card services; remote deposit capture and automated clearing house services; online, mobile, and telephone banking services; personal and business checks; mortgage products and services; and wealth management services. The company operates offices in Myrtle Beach, Carolina Forest, North Myrtle Beach, Murrells Inlet, Pawleys Island, Georgetown, Mount Pleasant, Charleston, Bluffton, Hilton Head Island, and Beaufort, South Carolina. South Atlantic Bancshares, Inc. was founded in 2007 and is headquartered in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

About Customers Bancorp

Customers Bancorp, Inc. operates as the bank holding company for Customers Bank that provides financial products and services to individual consumers, and small and middle market businesses. The company provides deposit banking products, which includes commercial and consumer checking, non-interest-bearing and interest-bearing demand, MMDA, savings, and time deposit accounts. Its lending business offers commercial and industrial, commercial real estate, and multifamily and residential mortgage loans; SBA lending and financing; specialty lending includes fund finance, real estate specialty finance, technology and venture, and healthcare and financial institutions group; commercial loans to mortgage companies, and commercial equipment financing; and fund finance, such as variable rate loans secured by collateral pools to private debt funds; and cash management services. In addition, the company provides digital banking including Banking-as-a-Service to fintech companies, payments and treasury services to businesses, and consumer loans through fintech companies and the TassatPay, a blockchain-based instant B2B payments platform which offers instant payments including over-the-counter desks, exchanges, liquidity providers, market makers, funds, and other B2B verticals. Further, it offers mobile phone and internet banking, wire transfers, electronic bill payment, lock box, remote deposit capture, courier, merchant processing, cash vault, controlled disbursements, positive pay, and cash management services, such as account reconciliation, collections, and sweep accounts. The company was incorporated in 2010 and is headquartered in West Reading, Pennsylvania.