Comparing Cronos Group (NASDAQ:CRON) & Elanco Animal Health (NYSE:ELAN)

Elanco Animal Health (NYSE:ELAN) and Cronos Group (NASDAQ:CRON) are both healthcare companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, risk, profitability, valuation, dividends and earnings.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and recommmendations for Elanco Animal Health and Cronos Group, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Elanco Animal Health	1	2	9	1	2.77
Cronos Group	0	2	3	0	2.60

Elanco Animal Health presently has a consensus target price of $29.91, suggesting a potential upside of 26.96%. Cronos Group has a consensus target price of $2.30, suggesting a potential downside of 28.35%. Given Elanco Animal Health’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Elanco Animal Health is more favorable than Cronos Group.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

97.5% of Elanco Animal Health shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 8.7% of Cronos Group shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.1% of Elanco Animal Health shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 7.8% of Cronos Group shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares Elanco Animal Health and Cronos Group’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Elanco Animal Health	-3.96%	8.13%	3.99%
Cronos Group	39.08%	4.85%	4.62%

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Elanco Animal Health and Cronos Group”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Elanco Animal Health	$5.02 billion	2.34	-$232.00 million	($0.41)	-57.46
Cronos Group	$179.09 million	6.61	-$9.45 million	$0.20	16.05

Cronos Group has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Elanco Animal Health. Elanco Animal Health is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Cronos Group, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Volatility and Risk

Elanco Animal Health has a beta of 1.7, indicating that its stock price is 70% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Cronos Group has a beta of 0.9, indicating that its stock price is 10% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Elanco Animal Health beats Cronos Group on 8 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Elanco Animal Health

Elanco Animal Health Incorporated, an animal health company, innovates, develops, manufactures, and markets products for pets and farm animals. It offers pet health disease prevention products, such as parasiticide and vaccine products that protect pets from worms, fleas, and ticks under the Seresto, Advantage, Advantix, and Advocate brands; pet health therapeutics for pain, osteoarthritis, ear infections, cardiovascular, and dermatology indications in canines and felines under the Galliprant and Claro brands; vaccines, antibiotics, parasiticides, and other products for use in poultry and aquaculture production, as well as nutritional health products, including enzymes, probiotics, and prebiotics; and a range of vaccines, antibiotics, implants, parasiticides, and other products used in ruminant and swine production under the Rumensin and Baytril brands. The company sells its products to third-party distributors; veterinarians; and farm animal producers, including beef and dairy farmers, as well as pork, poultry, and aquaculture operations. Elanco Animal Health Incorporated was founded in 1954 and is headquartered in Greenfield, Indiana.

About Cronos Group

Cronos Group Inc. operates as a cannabinoid company that engages in the cultivation, production and marketing of cannabis products in Canada, Israel, and Germany. It offers dried flower, pre-rolls, oils, vaporizers, edibles, and cannabis tinctures under the Spinach, Lord Jones, and PEACE NATURALS brands. Cronos Group Inc. was founded in 2012 and is based in Toronto, Canada.