Reviewing Citizens (NASDAQ:CIZN) & ICICI Bank (NYSE:IBN)

Citizens (NASDAQ:CIZN) and ICICI Bank (NYSE:IBN) are both finance companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, profitability, analyst recommendations, earnings, risk, valuation and dividends.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current recommendations and price targets for Citizens and ICICI Bank, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Citizens	0	0	4	0	3.00
ICICI Bank	0	2	1	1	2.75

Citizens presently has a consensus target price of $14.17, suggesting a potential upside of 44.56%. Given Citizens’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Citizens is more favorable than ICICI Bank.

Dividends

Citizens pays an annual dividend of $0.08 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.8%. ICICI Bank pays an annual dividend of $0.21 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.8%. Citizens pays out 4.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. ICICI Bank pays out 13.3% 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. Citizens has increased its dividend for 1 consecutive years. Citizens is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

Risk & Volatility

Citizens has a beta of 0.04, indicating that its stock price is 96% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, ICICI Bank has a beta of 0.41, indicating that its stock price is 59% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Citizens and ICICI Bank”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Citizens	$40.95 million	1.36	$5.49 million	$1.68	5.83
ICICI Bank	$2,261.59 billion	0.04	$6.13 billion	$1.58	17.67

ICICI Bank has higher revenue and earnings than Citizens. Citizens is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than ICICI Bank, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Citizens and ICICI Bank’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Citizens	7.00%	11.28%	0.37%
ICICI Bank	25.60%	13.81%	1.82%

Institutional and Insider Ownership

9.7% of Citizens shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 18.2% of ICICI Bank shares are held by institutional investors. 8.9% of Citizens shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

About Citizens

Citizens Holding Company operates as the bank holding company for The Citizens Bank of Philadelphia that provides various commercial and personal banking products and services. It offers demand deposits; and savings and time deposit accounts. The company also provides secured and unsecured loans; mortgage loans; single and multi-family housing, farm, residential and commercial construction, and commercial real estate loans; commercial, industrial, and agricultural production loans; and consumer loans, as well as issues letters of credit. In addition, it offers personal and corporate trust services; credit life and title insurance; and online and mobile banking services. The company was founded in 1908 and is headquartered in Philadelphia, Mississippi.

About ICICI Bank

ICICI Bank Limited provides various banking products and services in India and internationally. It operates through Retail Banking, Wholesale Banking, Treasury, Other Banking, Life Insurance, and Others segments. The company offers savings, salary, pension, current, and other accounts; and time, fixed, recurring, and security deposits services. It also provides home, car, two-wheeler, personal, gold, and commercial business loans, as well as loans against securities and other loans; business loans, including working capital finance, term loans, collateral free loans, loans without financials, finance for importers and exporters, and overdraft facilities, as well as loans for new entities and card swipes; and credit, debit, prepaid, travel, forex, and corporate cards. In addition, the company offers pockets wallet; fixed income products; investment products, such as mutual funds, gold monetization schemes, initial public offerings, and other online investment services; and agri and rural business, farmer finance, tractor loans, and micro banking services, as well as other services to agri corporates. Further, it provides portfolio management, trade, foreign exchange, locker, private and NRI banking, and cash management services; family wealth and demat accounts; commercial and investment banking, capital market, custodial, and institutional banking services; health, personal accident, fire, and motor insurance, as well as distributes general and life insurance products; and Internet, mobile, and phone banking services. Additionally, the company offers securities investment, broking, trading, and underwriting services; and merchant banking, trusteeship, housing finance, pension fund management, asset management, investment advisory, points of presence, and private equity/venture capital fund management services. ICICI Bank Limited was founded in 1955 and is headquartered in Mumbai, India.