Critical Contrast: Navios Maritime Partners (NYSE:NMM) vs. Matson (NYSE:MATX)

Navios Maritime Partners (NYSE:NMM) and Matson (NYSE:MATX) are both mid-cap industrials companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, profitability, dividends, analyst recommendations, risk, earnings and institutional ownership.

Dividends

Navios Maritime Partners pays an annual dividend of $0.24 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.3%. Matson pays an annual dividend of $1.52 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.7%. Navios Maritime Partners pays out 2.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Matson pays out 10.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. Matson has increased its dividend for 13 consecutive years. Matson is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

Volatility & Risk

Navios Maritime Partners has a beta of 1.02, indicating that its stock price is 2% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Matson has a beta of 1.27, indicating that its stock price is 27% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Navios Maritime Partners and Matson’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Navios Maritime Partners	25.05%	10.48%	5.83%
Matson	13.41%	16.94%	10.01%

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings for Navios Maritime Partners and Matson, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Navios Maritime Partners	0	1	1	0	2.50
Matson	0	0	4	1	3.20

Navios Maritime Partners presently has a consensus price target of $85.00, indicating a potential upside of 3.89%. Matson has a consensus price target of $232.33, indicating a potential upside of 6.70%. Given Matson’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Matson is more favorable than Navios Maritime Partners.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

62.7% of Navios Maritime Partners shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 84.8% of Matson shares are owned by institutional investors. 2.5% of Matson shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Navios Maritime Partners and Matson”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Navios Maritime Partners	$1.34 billion	1.75	$285.33 million	$11.87	6.89
Matson	$3.34 billion	1.95	$444.80 million	$14.96	14.56

Matson has higher revenue and earnings than Navios Maritime Partners. Navios Maritime Partners is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Matson, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

Matson beats Navios Maritime Partners on 16 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Navios Maritime Partners

Navios Maritime Partners L.P. owns and operates dry cargo vessels in Asia, Europe, North America, and Australia. The company offers seaborne transportation services for a range of liquid and dry cargo commodities, including crude oil, refined petroleum, chemicals, iron ore, coal, grain, fertilizer, and containers, as well as charters its vessels under short, medium, and longer-term charters. Navios Maritime Partners L.P. was founded in 2007 and is based in Monaco.

About Matson

Matson, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, engages in the provision of ocean transportation and logistics services. It operates through two segments, Ocean Transportation and Logistics. The Ocean Transportation segment offers ocean freight transportation services to the domestic non-contiguous economies of Hawaii, Japan, Alaska, and Guam, as well as to other island economies in Micronesia. It primarily transports dry containers of mixed commodities, refrigerated commodities, food products, beverages, building materials, automobiles, and household goods; livestock; seafood; general sustenance cargo; and garments, footwear, e-commerce, and other retail merchandise. This segment also operates an expedited service from China to Long Beach, California, and various islands in the South Pacific, as well as Okinawa, Japan; and provides stevedoring, refrigerated cargo services, inland transportation, container equipment maintenance, and other terminal services to ocean carriers on the Hawaiian islands of Oahu, Hawaii, Maui, and Kauai, as well as in the Alaska locations of Anchorage, Kodiak, and Dutch Harbor. In addition, it offers vessel management and container transshipment services. The Logistics segment provides multimodal transportation brokerage services, including domestic and international rail intermodal, long-haul and regional highway trucking, specialized hauling, flat-bed and project, less-than-truckload, and expedited freight services; less-than-container load consolidation and freight forwarding services; warehousing and distribution services; supply chain management services, and non-vessel operating common carrier freight forwarding services. It serves the U.S. military, freight forwarders, retailers, consumer goods, automobile manufacturers, and other customers. The company was formerly known as Alexander & Baldwin Holdings, Inc. and changed its name to Matson, Inc. in June 2012. Matson, Inc. was founded in 1882 and is headquartered in Honolulu, Hawaii.