Burke & Herbert Financial Services (NASDAQ:BHRB) & WesBanco (NASDAQ:WSBC) Head to Head Review

WesBanco (NASDAQ:WSBC) and Burke & Herbert Financial Services (NASDAQ:BHRB) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, analyst recommendations, dividends, earnings, profitability, risk and institutional ownership.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings and recommmendations for WesBanco and Burke & Herbert Financial Services, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
WesBanco	0	4	3	0	2.43
Burke & Herbert Financial Services	0	1	0	0	2.00

WesBanco currently has a consensus target price of $34.71, indicating a potential upside of 12.60%. Burke & Herbert Financial Services has a consensus target price of $73.00, indicating a potential upside of 15.93%. Given Burke & Herbert Financial Services’ higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Burke & Herbert Financial Services is more favorable than WesBanco.

Profitability

This table compares WesBanco and Burke & Herbert Financial Services’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
WesBanco	15.22%	5.90%	0.79%
Burke & Herbert Financial Services	-1.10%	9.96%	0.85%

Insider and Institutional Ownership

61.4% of WesBanco shares are held by institutional investors. 3.4% of WesBanco shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 9.7% of Burke & Herbert Financial Services shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Dividends

WesBanco pays an annual dividend of $1.44 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.7%. Burke & Herbert Financial Services pays an annual dividend of $2.12 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.4%. WesBanco pays out 60.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Burke & Herbert Financial Services pays out 26.0% 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. WesBanco has raised its dividend for 13 consecutive years. WesBanco is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares WesBanco and Burke & Herbert Financial Services’ top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
WesBanco	$582.23 million	3.15	$159.03 million	$2.40	12.85
Burke & Herbert Financial Services	$148.44 million	6.30	$22.69 million	$8.15	7.73

WesBanco has higher revenue and earnings than Burke & Herbert Financial Services. Burke & Herbert Financial Services is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than WesBanco, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

WesBanco beats Burke & Herbert Financial Services on 9 of the 16 factors compared between the two stocks.

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.

About Burke & Herbert Financial Services

Burke & Herbert Financial Services Corp. operates as the bank holding company for Burke & Herbert Bank & Trust Company that provides various community banking products and services in Virginia and Maryland. It offers consumer and commercial deposit products, such as digital banking, demand, negotiable order of withdrawal, money market, and savings accounts, as well as certificates of deposit. The company also provides loans, such as commercial real estate, single family residential, owner-occupied commercial real estate, residential mortgage, acquisition, construction and development, commercial and industrial, and consumer non-real estate and other loans. In addition, it offers treasury and cash management services; and online and mobile banking, and wealth and trust services. The company was founded in 1852 and is headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia.