Is Citizens Bank (CZBS) Trading at an ‘Excessive Discount’ Despite Share Price Appreciation?

River Oaks Capital, an investment management company, released its fourth-quarter investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. For the one year period, the fund returned 23.9% compared to the Russell 2000 TR’s 11.5% return and the Russell Microcap TR’s 13.7% return. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.

In its fourth quarter 2024 investor letter, River Oaks Capital emphasized stocks such as Citizens Bancshares Corporation (OTC:CZBS). Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, Citizens Bancshares Corporation (OTC:CZBS) is a holding company for Citizens Trust Bank that provides various commercial banking services. The one-month return of Citizens Bancshares Corporation (OTC:CZBS) was 1.80%, and its shares gained 15.09% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On February 20, 2025, Citizens Bancshares Corporation (OTC:CZBS) stock closed at $52.08 per share with a market capitalization of $102.752 million.

River Oaks Capital stated the following regarding Citizens Bancshares Corporation (OTC:CZBS) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:

Citizens Bancshares Corporation (OTC:CZBS) is a community bank located in Atlanta, Georgia. It is the second largest position in our fund and now has a $90m market cap. Cynthia Day – CEO of Citizens Bank – continues to do a wonderful job at navigating the capital allocation of the over $122m of cash they received from the U.S government’s ECIP funding and other favorable funding they received in 2022 – a 2% interest rate loan of perpetual preferred equity redeemable at ~28% of face value.

Earlier this year, I flew to Atlanta to visit with Cynthia, CFO Sam Cox, Chairman of the Board Ray Robinson and the rest of the Citizens Bank team in Atlanta at their shareholders’ meeting – my third visit to Atlanta to spend time with the team…” (Click here to read the full text)

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Citizens Bancshares Corporation (OTC:CZBS) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. While we acknowledge the potential of Citizens Bancshares Corporation (OTC:CZBS) as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is as promising as NVIDIA but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.

In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q4 2024 page for more investor letters from hedge funds and other leading investors.

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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.