West Coast Community Bancorp (OTCMKTS:SCZC) & Signature Bank (NASDAQ:SBNY) Critical Survey

Risk & Volatility

West Coast Community Bancorp has a beta of 0.49, meaning that its stock price is 51% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Signature Bank has a beta of 12.73, meaning that its stock price is 1,173% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Dividends

West Coast Community Bancorp pays an annual dividend of $0.80 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.7%. Signature Bank pays an annual dividend of $0.70 per share and has a dividend yield of 74.5%. West Coast Community Bancorp pays out 23.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Signature Bank pays out 15.1% 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. Signature Bank is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares West Coast Community Bancorp and Signature Bank”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
West Coast Community Bancorp	$123.69 million	4.05	$29.58 million	$3.39	13.97
Signature Bank	$2.70 billion	0.02	$1.34 billion	$4.65	0.20

Signature Bank has higher revenue and earnings than West Coast Community Bancorp. Signature Bank 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.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

9.7% of West Coast Community Bancorp shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 11.1% of Signature Bank shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.5% of Signature Bank shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

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

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
West Coast Community Bancorp	23.91%	N/A	N/A
Signature Bank	N/A	N/A	N/A

Summary

Signature Bank beats West Coast Community Bancorp on 8 of the 11 factors compared between the two stocks.

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.

About Signature Bank

As of March 12, 2023, Signature Bank went out of business. Previously, the company provided digital assets banking services and comprised of certain loan portfolios. The company was incorporated in 2000 and is based in New York, New York. Signature Bank now trades on OTCPK.