Reviewing Bank of Montreal (NYSE:BMO) & Banco Itaú Chile (NYSE:ITCL)

Banco Itaú Chile (NYSE:ITCL) and Bank of Montreal (NYSE:BMO) are both finance companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, dividends, valuation, earnings, risk, analyst recommendations and profitability.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

22.2% of Banco Itaú Chile shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 45.8% of Bank of Montreal shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.0% of Bank of Montreal shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations and price targets for Banco Itaú Chile and Bank of Montreal, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Banco Itaú Chile	0	0	1	0	3.00
Bank of Montreal	0	0	4	0	3.00

Bank of Montreal has a consensus price target of $131.00, suggesting a potential upside of 42.24%. Given Bank of Montreal’s higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Bank of Montreal is more favorable than Banco Itaú Chile.

Profitability

This table compares Banco Itaú Chile and Bank of Montreal’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Banco Itaú Chile	10.54%	10.65%	0.91%
Bank of Montreal	7.40%	11.89%	0.64%

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Banco Itaú Chile and Bank of Montreal’s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Banco Itaú Chile	$3.99 billion	0.50	$423.68 million	$0.66	4.70
Bank of Montreal	$50.48 billion	1.33	$3.24 billion	$5.24	17.58

Bank of Montreal has higher revenue and earnings than Banco Itaú Chile. Banco Itaú Chile is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Bank of Montreal, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Dividends

Banco Itaú Chile pays an annual dividend of $0.17 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.5%. Bank of Montreal pays an annual dividend of $3.25 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.5%. Banco Itaú Chile pays out 25.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Bank of Montreal pays out 62.0% 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. Bank of Montreal has increased its dividend for 1 consecutive years. Banco Itaú Chile is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Summary

Bank of Montreal beats Banco Itaú Chile on 11 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Banco Itaú Chile

Banco Itaú Chile provides banking services in Chile and Colombia. It provides wholesale and corporate banking; real estate and construction; and retail, private, companies, and personal banking services, as well as treasury and other financial services. The company offers checking accounts, and debit and credit card; credit line, consumer credit installments, mortgage credit, and universal consumer and university credit; and leasing and company credits including short term, fixed long term, and structured credit, as well as factoring, foreign trade exports, such as financing line agreement, import payment order, collection, and letter of credit, financing cash operation services. In addition, it provides warranty papers including financed, cash, and web guaranteed tickets; state guarantee services; insurance products, which includes car, home, life, covid19 insurance for workers, financial protection, and assists insurance. The company also offers investment, mutual funds, stock broking, pension savings, and ETF mutual funds; international cash management, cash pooling, secure and rolling from check, bill collection, online payroll, automatic bill payments, and PAC collection services; and fusion and acquisition, bill of commerce, corporate bonds, purchase and sale of currency, short-term liquidly investment, and derivatives. The company was incorporated in 1871 and is headquartered in Santiago, Chile.

About Bank of Montreal

Bank of Montreal provides diversified financial services primarily in North America. It operates through Canadian P&C, U.S P&C, BMO Wealth Management, and BMO Capital Markets segments. The company's personal banking products and services include deposits, mortgages, home lending, consumer credit, small business lending, credit cards, cash management, financial and investment advice, and other banking services; and commercial banking products and services comprise various of financing options and treasury and payment solutions, as well as risk management products. It also offers investing, banking, and wealth management advisory; digital investing services; financial solutions for individuals, families, and businesses; provides investment management services to institutional, retail, and high net worth investors; and diversified insurance, and wealth and pension de-risking solutions. In addition, the company provides individual life, critical illness and annuity products, as well as segregated funds, and group creditor and travel insurance to customers; debt and equity capital-raising, loan origination and syndication, balance sheet management, treasury management, mergers and acquisitions advice, restructurings and recapitalizations, trade finance, and risk mitigation services, as well as a range of banking and other operating services. Further, the company offers research and access to financial markets for institutional, corporate and retail clients through an integrated suite of sales and trading solutions related to debt, foreign exchange, interest rates, credit, equities, securitization, and commodities; provides new product development and origination services, as well as risk management and advisory services for hedging strategies, including in interest rates, foreign exchange rates and commodities prices; and funding and liquidity management services. The company was founded in 1817 and is headquartered in Montreal, Canada.