Contrasting Citizens Community Bancorp (NASDAQ:CZWI) & Timberland Bancorp (NASDAQ:TSBK)

Citizens Community Bancorp (NASDAQ:CZWI) and Timberland Bancorp (NASDAQ:TSBK) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, analyst recommendations, dividends, risk, earnings, valuation and institutional ownership.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for Citizens Community Bancorp and Timberland Bancorp, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Citizens Community Bancorp	0	1	1	0	2.50
Timberland Bancorp	0	0	1	0	3.00

Insider & Institutional Ownership

55.1% of Citizens Community Bancorp shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 65.5% of Timberland Bancorp shares are owned by institutional investors. 3.9% of Citizens Community Bancorp shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 3.6% of Timberland Bancorp shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares Citizens Community Bancorp and Timberland Bancorp’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Citizens Community Bancorp	14.60%	7.81%	0.82%
Timberland Bancorp	26.17%	11.73%	1.54%

Risk & Volatility

Citizens Community Bancorp has a beta of 0.66, suggesting that its stock price is 34% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Timberland Bancorp has a beta of 0.35, suggesting that its stock price is 65% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Dividends

Citizens Community Bancorp pays an annual dividend of $0.42 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.2%. Timberland Bancorp pays an annual dividend of $1.16 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.0%. Citizens Community Bancorp pays out 28.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Timberland Bancorp pays out 30.1% 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. Citizens Community Bancorp has raised its dividend for 6 consecutive years and Timberland Bancorp has raised its dividend for 13 consecutive years. Timberland Bancorp is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Citizens Community Bancorp and Timberland Bancorp”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Citizens Community Bancorp	$98.77 million	1.90	$14.42 million	$1.46	13.35
Timberland Bancorp	$80.43 million	3.85	$29.16 million	$3.86	10.17

Timberland Bancorp has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Citizens Community Bancorp. Timberland Bancorp is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Citizens Community Bancorp, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

Timberland Bancorp beats Citizens Community Bancorp on 10 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Citizens Community Bancorp

Citizens Community Bancorp, Inc. operates as a bank holding company for Citizens Community Federal N.A. that provides various traditional community banking services to businesses, agricultural operators, and consumers. It accepts various deposit products, including demand deposits, savings and money market accounts, and certificates of deposit. The company also offers various loan products, such as commercial real estate, commercial and industrial, agricultural real estate, agricultural operating, and consumer loans; and one-to-four family residential mortgages and home equity lines-of-credit. In addition, it maintains a portfolio of investments comprising mortgage-backed, corporate asset-backed, U.S. Government sponsored agency, and corporate debt securities. Citizens Community Bancorp, Inc. was founded in 1938 and is based in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

About Timberland Bancorp

Timberland Bancorp, Inc. operates as the bank holding company for Timberland Bank that provides various community banking services in Washington. It offers various deposit products, including money market deposit, checking, and regular savings accounts, as well as certificates of deposit. The company also provides one-to four-family residential, multi-family, and commercial real estate loans; and construction lending products, such as custom and owner/builder, speculative one- to four-family, commercial, multi-family, land development, and land development. In addition, it offers consumer loans comprising home equity lines of credit and second mortgage loans, automobile loans, boat loans, motorcycle loans, recreational vehicle loans, savings account loans, and unsecured loans; and commercial business loans. Timberland Bancorp, Inc. was founded in 1915 and is headquartered in Hoquiam, Washington.