Westamerica Bancorporation (NASDAQ:WABC) is a company in the Regional – Pacific Banks industry and that’s how we contrast it to its competitors. The comparing will be based on the dividends, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, profitability, risk, earnings and valuation.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

86.3% of Westamerica Bancorporation’s shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 64.57% of all Regional – Pacific Banks’s companies shares are owned by institutional investors. On other hand Westamerica Bancorporation has 0.3% of its shares owned by company insiders & an average of 2.65% insiders ownership for its competitors.

Profitability

Table 1 has Westamerica Bancorporation and its competitors’ return on equity, return on assets and net margins.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Westamerica Bancorporation	36.26%	9.30%	1.00%
Industry Average	31.09%	9.88%	1.08%

Earnings and Valuation

In next table we are comparing Westamerica Bancorporation and its competitors’ gross revenue, valuation and net income.

	Net Income	Gross Revenue	Price/Earnings Ratio
Westamerica Bancorporation	71.56M	197.33M	24.05
Industry Average	126.76M	407.79M	14.98

Westamerica Bancorporation has lower revenue, but higher P/E Ratio than its competitors. The company has a higher price-to-earnings ratio which is presently more expensive in contrast to its competitors.

Analyst Recommendations

Table 3 provides summary of current ratings for Westamerica Bancorporation and its competitors.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Westamerica Bancorporation	0	1	0	2.00
Industry Average	1.00	1.20	2.08	2.48

With average price target of $47, Westamerica Bancorporation has a potential downside of -24.50%. As a group, Regional – Pacific Banks companies have a potential upside of 57.87%. Westamerica Bancorporation’s strong average rating and high possible upside, looks like is making equities research analysts believe that the company is more favorable than its competitors.

Performance

In this table we show the Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, Half Yearly, Yearly and YTD Performance of Westamerica Bancorporation and its competitors.

	Performance (W)	Performance (M)	Performance (Q)	Performance (HY)	Performance (Y)	Performance (YTD)
Westamerica Bancorporation	-0.23%	2.54%	2.59%	2.03%	12.13%	15.39%
Industry Average	1.62%	5.89%	4.11%	4.08%	8.95%	15.46%

For the past year Westamerica Bancorporation’s stock price has smaller growth than the average for its competitors.

Risk and Volatility

Westamerica Bancorporation has a beta of 1.01 and its 1.00% more volatile than Standard & Poor’s 500. In other hand, Westamerica Bancorporation’s competitors have beta of 0.87 which is 13.00% less volatile than Standard & Poor’s 500.

Dividends

The annual dividend that Westamerica Bancorporation pay is $1.6 per share with a dividend yield of 2.55%. On the other side, 2.74% is the dividend yield of Westamerica Bancorporation’s competitors.

Summary

Westamerica Bancorporation’s peers beat on 5 of the 6 factors Westamerica Bancorporation.

Westamerica Bancorporation operates as a bank holding company for Westamerica Bank that provides various banking products and services to individual and commercial customers in Northern and Central California. The company accepts various deposit products, including retail savings and checking accounts; interest and non-interest bearing demand deposits; money market checking deposits; and certificates of deposit, as well as invests in securities. Its loan portfolio includes commercial, commercial real estate, real estate construction, residential real estate, and consumer installment loans, as well as other loans primarily comprising indirect automobile loans. The company operates through 85 branch offices in 21 counties. The company was formerly known as Independent Bankshares Corporation and changed its name to Westamerica Bancorporation in 1983. Westamerica Bancorporation was founded in 1972 and is headquartered in San Rafael, California.