Pacific Valley Bancorp (OTCMKTS:PVBK) and WesBanco (NASDAQ:WSBC) Critical Survey

Pacific Valley Bancorp (OTCMKTS:PVBK) and WesBanco (NASDAQ:WSBC) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, institutional ownership, profitability, valuation, risk, dividends and analyst recommendations.

Risk and Volatility

Pacific Valley Bancorp has a beta of 0.35, indicating that its share price is 65% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, WesBanco has a beta of 0.83, indicating that its share price is 17% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

2.8% of Pacific Valley Bancorp shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 61.4% of WesBanco shares are owned by institutional investors. 3.4% of WesBanco shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares Pacific Valley Bancorp and WesBanco’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Pacific Valley Bancorp	15.89%	N/A	N/A
WesBanco	15.22%	5.90%	0.79%

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Pacific Valley Bancorp and WesBanco”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Pacific Valley Bancorp	$27.51 million	1.65	$4.85 million	$0.97	9.56
WesBanco	$582.23 million	3.17	$159.03 million	$2.40	12.93

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

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current recommendations for Pacific Valley Bancorp and WesBanco, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Pacific Valley Bancorp	0	0	0	0	N/A
WesBanco	0	4	3	0	2.43

WesBanco has a consensus price target of $34.71, indicating a potential upside of 11.84%. Given WesBanco’s higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe WesBanco is more favorable than Pacific Valley Bancorp.

Summary

WesBanco beats Pacific Valley Bancorp on 12 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Pacific Valley Bancorp

Pacific Valley Bancorp operates as the bank holding company for Pacific Valley Bank that provides various banking products and services in the United States. The company offers personal and business banking, including checking accounts, savings and money market accounts, and certificates of deposit; and online solutions, such as online and mobile banking, bill pay, remote deposit capture, positive pay, e-statements, and order checks. It also provides commercial or agriculture lines of credit, commercial or agriculture terms loans, commercial constructions loans, agriculture production lending, and government guaranteed loan programs; and debit card, incoming wire instructions, ATM locator, fraud prevention, identity theft, and FDIC insurance estimator services. The company was founded in 2004 and is headquartered in Salinas, California.

About WesBanco

WesBanco, Inc. operates as the bank holding company for WesBanco Bank, Inc. that provides retail banking, corporate banking, personal and corporate trust, brokerage, mortgage banking, and insurance services to individuals and businesses in the United States. The company operates through two segments, Community Banking, and Trust and Investment Services. It offers commercial demand, individual demand, and time deposit accounts; commercial, mortgage and individual installment loans; retail loans, such as residential real estate mortgage loans, home equity lines of credit, and loans for other consumer purposes; installment loans to finance the purchase of automobiles, trucks, motorcycles, boats, and other recreational vehicles, as well as home equity installment loans, unsecured home improvement loans, and revolving lines of credit; and various non-traditional offerings, such as insurance and securities brokerage services. The company also provides trust services; and various alternative investment products, including mutual funds and annuities. In addition, it acts as an agency that specializes in property, casualty, life, and title insurance, as well as benefit plan sales and administration to personal and commercial clients; provides broker dealer and discount brokerage services; holds investment securities and loans; and holds and leases commercial real estate properties, as well as acts as an investment adviser to a family of mutual funds. WesBanco, Inc. was founded in 1870 and is headquartered in Wheeling, West Virginia.