Eastern Bankshares (NASDAQ:EBC) & Sterling Bancorp (NASDAQ:SBT) Head to Head Analysis

Eastern Bankshares (NASDAQ:EBC) and Sterling Bancorp (NASDAQ:SBT) are both finance companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, institutional ownership, earnings, valuation, profitability, analyst recommendations and risk.

Profitability

This table compares Eastern Bankshares and Sterling Bancorp’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Eastern Bankshares	49.59%	5.59%	0.72%
Sterling Bancorp	5.79%	2.40%	0.31%

Insider & Institutional Ownership

71.7% of Eastern Bankshares shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 26.4% of Sterling Bancorp shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.2% of Eastern Bankshares shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.8% of Sterling Bancorp shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Eastern Bankshares and Sterling Bancorp’s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Eastern Bankshares	$637.25 million	3.93	$232.18 million	$2.85	4.97
Sterling Bancorp	$129.57 million	2.10	$7.41 million	$0.16	32.69

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

Volatility & Risk

Eastern Bankshares has a beta of 0.89, meaning that its stock price is 11% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Sterling Bancorp has a beta of 0.54, meaning that its stock price is 46% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and target prices for Eastern Bankshares and Sterling Bancorp, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Eastern Bankshares	1	0	2	0	2.33
Sterling Bancorp	0	0	0	0	N/A

Eastern Bankshares presently has a consensus price target of $15.25, suggesting a potential upside of 7.62%. Given Eastern Bankshares’ higher possible upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Eastern Bankshares is more favorable than Sterling Bancorp.

Summary

Eastern Bankshares beats Sterling Bancorp on 11 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Eastern Bankshares

Eastern Bankshares, Inc. operates as the bank holding company for Eastern Bank that provides banking products and services primarily to retail, commercial, and small business customers. The company provides deposit accounts, interest checking accounts, money market accounts, savings accounts, and time certificates of deposit accounts. It also offers commercial and industrial, commercial real estate and construction, small business, residential real estate, and home equity loans; lines of credit; and other consumer loans comprising unsecured personal lines of credit, overdraft protection, automobile loans, home improvement loans, airplane loans, and other personal loans. In addition, the company provides trust, financial planning and portfolio management, automated lock box collection, cash management, and account reconciliation services; personal, business, and employee benefits insurance products. Eastern Bankshares, Inc. was founded in 1818 and is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.

About Sterling Bancorp

Sterling Bancorp, Inc. is a unitary thrift holding company. Its wholly owned subsidiary, Sterling Bank and Trust, F.S.B., has primary branch operations in San Francisco and Los Angeles, California and New York City, and a loan production office in Seattle, Washington. Sterling offers a broad range of loan products to the residential and commercial markets, as well as retail and business banking services. Sterling also has an operations center and a branch in Southfield, Michigan. Sterling was named as the top performing community bank in the United States with total assets between $1 billion and $10 billion in 2017 by SNL/S&P Global Market Intelligence.