Hovde Group analyst Ben Gerlinger on Friday said BayCom Corp.
BCML,
+0.16%,
Sierra Bancorp
BSRR,
+1.82%,
California Bancorp
CALB,

and RBB Bancorp
RBB,
+1.29%
appear to be best positioned to outperform peers amid an uptick in mergers and acquisitions among banks in the California market. “Following more than a decade of under-punching rival geographies in both number of deals and total assets acquired, California-based bank M&A is once again alive and well,” Gerlinger said in a research note. “More importantly, as the industry comes to grips with the necessity of bulking up asset bases in order to spread ever-increasing technology costs across a larger balance sheet, deal pricing/structure and the pro forma strategy is likely to separate the would-be winners from the rest of the pack.” He views RBB Bancorp
RBB,
+1.29%
as undervalued relative to its peers because of its expected loan growth, stable net interest margin, re-acceleration of organic growth and potential M&A opportunities. California BanCorp
CALB,

drew praise from Gerlinger for its organic growth path and improvement in its margins. RBB Bancorp shares are up 61% so far this year and California BanCorp is up 10.9%. The SPDR S&P Regional Banking ETF
KRE,
+1.04%
is up 25.6%.