NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- PNC Financial Services (PNC) - Get Report shares are down 1.94% to $92.70 in early market trading on Tuesday after a federal jury ordered the company to pay $391 million in damages for an alleged scam involving prepaid funerals at a now defunct St. Louis-based company.

The lawsuit, filed in 2009, centers around National Prearranged Services (NPS) which sold prepaid funerals to customers who were told that the funds were supposed to be in a trust backed by life insurance policies, but whose funds were then allegedly siphoned off by some company's employees, six of whom have since been sentenced to prison.

PNC took over as overseer of the company for Allegiant Bank, which served as the company's trustee from 1998 - 2004, according to Reuters. The complaint, filed by a state life and health guarantee associations and a Texas special receiver set up to wind down NPS, alleges that Allegiant and other overseers failed to properly monitor the company's employees and were therefore liable for damages.

At the 2013 sentencing of the six defendants, the judge acknowledged that the group had defrauded more than 97,000 clients in 16 states to the tune of over $450 million.

TheStreet Ratings team rates PNC FINANCIAL SVCS GROUP INC as a Buy with a ratings score of A. TheStreet Ratings Team has this to say about their recommendation:

"We rate PNC FINANCIAL SVCS GROUP INC (PNC) a BUY. This is based on the convergence of positive investment measures, which should help this stock outperform the majority of stocks that we rate. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its expanding profit margins, good cash flow from operations and increase in stock price during the past year. We feel these strengths outweigh the fact that the company has had somewhat weak growth in earnings per share."

Highlights from the analysis by TheStreet Ratings Team goes as follows:

• The gross profit margin for PNC FINANCIAL SVCS GROUP INC is currently very high, coming in at 92.87%. It has increased from the same quarter the previous year. Along with this, the net profit margin of 25.31% significantly outperformed against the industry average.
• Net operating cash flow has significantly increased by 386.51% to $977.00 million when compared to the same quarter last year. In addition, PNC FINANCIAL SVCS GROUP INC has also vastly surpassed the industry average cash flow growth rate of 303.29%.
• Compared to where it was a year ago today, the stock is now trading at a higher level, regardless of the company's weak earnings results. Turning our attention to the future direction of the stock, it goes without saying that even the best stocks can fall in an overall down market. However, in any other environment, this stock still has good upside potential despite the fact that it has already risen in the past year.
• PNC, with its decline in revenue, slightly underperformed the industry average of 3.0%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues slightly dropped by 4.5%. The declining revenue appears to have seeped down to the company's bottom line, decreasing earnings per share.
• The company's current return on equity has slightly decreased from the same quarter one year prior. This implies a minor weakness in the organization. Compared to other companies in the Commercial Banks industry and the overall market on the basis of return on equity, PNC FINANCIAL SVCS GROUP INC has outperformed in comparison with the industry average, but has underperformed when compared to that of the S&P 500.
• You can view the full analysis from the report here: PNC Ratings Report