Head to Head Review: VersaBank (NASDAQ:VBNK) versus Peapack-Gladstone Financial (NASDAQ:PGC)

VersaBank (NASDAQ:VBNK – Get Rating) and Peapack-Gladstone Financial (NASDAQ:PGC – Get Rating) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, profitability, analyst recommendations, risk, dividends, earnings and valuation.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings and target prices for VersaBank and Peapack-Gladstone Financial, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
VersaBank	0	0	2	0	3.00
Peapack-Gladstone Financial	0	0	1	0	3.00

VersaBank currently has a consensus price target of $9.00, indicating a potential upside of 19.52%. Peapack-Gladstone Financial has a consensus price target of $44.50, indicating a potential upside of 43.41%. Given Peapack-Gladstone Financial’s higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Peapack-Gladstone Financial is more favorable than VersaBank.

Profitability

This table compares VersaBank and Peapack-Gladstone Financial’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
VersaBank	16.82%	7.54%	0.84%
Peapack-Gladstone Financial	26.68%	14.19%	1.20%

Insider & Institutional Ownership

30.2% of VersaBank shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 73.0% of Peapack-Gladstone Financial shares are held by institutional investors. 5.3% of VersaBank shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 6.3% of Peapack-Gladstone Financial shares are held by 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.

Dividends

VersaBank pays an annual dividend of $0.07 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.9%. Peapack-Gladstone Financial pays an annual dividend of $0.20 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.6%. VersaBank pays out 9.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Peapack-Gladstone Financial pays out 5.0% 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.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares VersaBank and Peapack-Gladstone Financial’s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
VersaBank	$102.93 million	1.94	$17.60 million	$0.71	10.61
Peapack-Gladstone Financial	$278.29 million	1.99	$74.25 million	$4.00	7.76

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

Risk and Volatility

VersaBank has a beta of 0.48, suggesting that its stock price is 52% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Peapack-Gladstone Financial has a beta of 1.06, suggesting that its stock price is 6% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Peapack-Gladstone Financial beats VersaBank on 12 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About VersaBank

(Get Rating)

VersaBank engages in the provision of financial services. It operates through Digital Banking and DRTC. The Digital Banking segment offers business to business model using its financial technoolgy to address issues in the US banking market. The DRTC segment refers to developed IT security software and capabilities. The company was founded by David Roy Taylor on January 18, 1993 and is headquartered in London, Canada.

About Peapack-Gladstone Financial

(Get Rating)

Peapack-Gladstone Financial Corp. is a bank holding company, which engages in the provision of private banking services to businesses, non-profits, and consumers. It operates through the Banking and Peapack Private segments. The Banking segment is involved in the delivery of loan and deposit products to customers. The Peapack Private segment focuses on asset management services for individuals and institutions. The company was founded in August 1997 and is headquartered in Bedminster, NJ.