Critical Contrast: Lumen Technologies (NYSE:LUMN) & Hellenic Telecom Organization (OTCMKTS:HLTOY)

Lumen Technologies (NYSE:LUMN) and Hellenic Telecom Organization (OTCMKTS:HLTOY) are both mid-cap utilities companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, valuation, institutional ownership, risk, profitability, dividends and analyst recommendations.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations for Lumen Technologies and Hellenic Telecom Organization, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Lumen Technologies	1	6	0	1	2.13
Hellenic Telecom Organization	0	0	1	0	3.00

Lumen Technologies currently has a consensus target price of $7.25, indicating a potential downside of 17.97%. Given Lumen Technologies’ higher possible upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Lumen Technologies is more favorable than Hellenic Telecom Organization.

Profitability

This table compares Lumen Technologies and Hellenic Telecom Organization’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Lumen Technologies	-14.02%	N/A	-0.37%
Hellenic Telecom Organization	13.97%	30.71%	12.09%

Institutional & Insider Ownership

66.2% of Lumen Technologies shares are held by institutional investors. 2.3% of Lumen Technologies shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Lumen Technologies and Hellenic Telecom Organization”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Lumen Technologies	$12.40 billion	0.73	-$1.74 billion	($1.74)	-5.08
Hellenic Telecom Organization	$3.92 billion	2.24	$566.95 million	$0.70	15.27

Hellenic Telecom Organization has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Lumen Technologies. Lumen Technologies is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Hellenic Telecom Organization, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Volatility and Risk

Lumen Technologies has a beta of 1.52, indicating that its share price is 52% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Hellenic Telecom Organization has a beta of 0.15, indicating that its share price is 85% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Hellenic Telecom Organization beats Lumen Technologies on 9 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Lumen Technologies

Lumen Technologies, Inc., a facilities-based technology and communications company, provides various integrated products and services to business and residential customers in the United States and internationally. The company operates in two segments, Business and Mass Markets. It offers dark fiber, edge cloud services, internet protocol, managed security, software-defined wide area networks, secure access service edge, unified communications and collaboration, and optical wavelengths services; ethernet and VPN data networks services; and legacy services to manage cash flow, including time division multiplexing voice, private line, and other legacy services, as well as sells communication equipment, and IT solutions. The company also provides high speed and lower speed broadband service to residential and small business customers; local and long-distance voice services, professional services, and other ancillary services; and federal broadband and state support programs. It serves its products and services under the Lumen, Quantum Fiber, and CenturyLink brands. The company was formerly known as CenturyLink, Inc. and changed its name to Lumen Technologies, Inc. in September 2020. Lumen Technologies, Inc. was incorporated in 1968 and is headquartered in Monroe, Louisiana.

About Hellenic Telecom Organization

Hellenic Telecommunications Organization S.A. provides telecommunications and related services to businesses and individuals primarily in Greece and Romania. It operates through OTE, COSMOTE Group, and Telekom Romania Mobile segments. The company offers fixed-line, Internet access, ICT, and TV production services; and international carrier services. It also provides mobile and satellite telecommunication, electronic money, e-commerce, financing, consultancy and security, real estate, insurance brokerage, training, wholesale telephony, retail, marketing, overdue accounts management, wholesale broadband, and infrastructure services. Hellenic Telecommunications Organization S.A. was incorporated in 1949 and is based in Athens, Greece. Hellenic Telecommunications Organization S.A. operates as a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom AG.