BATS vs. IMB, DGE, RKT, TSCO, ABF, ULVR, BNZL, CCH, SBRY, and BME
Should you be buying British American Tobacco stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of British American Tobacco include Imperial Brands (IMB), Diageo (DGE), Reckitt Benckiser Group (RKT), Tesco (TSCO), Associated British Foods (ABF), Unilever (ULVR), Bunzl (BNZL), Coca-Cola HBC (CCH), J Sainsbury (SBRY), and B&M European Value Retail (BME). These companies are all part of the "consumer defensive" sector.
British American Tobacco (LON:BATS) and Imperial Brands (LON:IMB) are both large-cap consumer defensive companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, valuation, earnings, community ranking, profitability, media sentiment, analyst recommendations, risk and institutional ownership.
Imperial Brands has a net margin of 12.88% compared to British American Tobacco's net margin of -52.66%. Imperial Brands' return on equity of 34.80% beat British American Tobacco's return on equity.
British American Tobacco currently has a consensus price target of GBX 3,166.67, indicating a potential upside of 27.95%. Imperial Brands has a consensus price target of GBX 2,197, indicating a potential upside of 11.78%. Given British American Tobacco's higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe British American Tobacco is more favorable than Imperial Brands.
41.4% of British American Tobacco shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 70.5% of Imperial Brands shares are owned by institutional investors. 10.5% of British American Tobacco shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 7.2% of Imperial Brands shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.
Imperial Brands has lower revenue, but higher earnings than British American Tobacco. British American Tobacco is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Imperial Brands, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
In the previous week, Imperial Brands had 6 more articles in the media than British American Tobacco. MarketBeat recorded 10 mentions for Imperial Brands and 4 mentions for British American Tobacco. British American Tobacco's average media sentiment score of 0.49 beat Imperial Brands' score of 0.32 indicating that British American Tobacco is being referred to more favorably in the media.
British American Tobacco pays an annual dividend of GBX 236 per share and has a dividend yield of 9.5%. Imperial Brands pays an annual dividend of GBX 147 per share and has a dividend yield of 7.5%. British American Tobacco pays out -3,647.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Imperial Brands pays out 5,927.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. British American Tobacco is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.
British American Tobacco received 597 more outperform votes than Imperial Brands when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 74.04% of users gave British American Tobacco an outperform vote while only 69.53% of users gave Imperial Brands an outperform vote.
British American Tobacco has a beta of 0.26, meaning that its share price is 74% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Imperial Brands has a beta of 0.43, meaning that its share price is 57% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Summary
Imperial Brands beats British American Tobacco on 11 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding BATS and its top 5 competitors to their watchlist. Each company is represented with a line over a 90 day period.
This chart shows the average media sentiment of LON and its competitors over the past 90 days as caculated by MarketBeat. The averaged score is equivalent to the following: Very Negative Sentiment <= -1.5, Negative Sentiment > -1.5 and <= -0.5, Neutral Sentiment > -0.5 and < 0.5, Positive Sentiment >= 0.5 and < 1.5, and Very Positive Sentiment >= 1.5.
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