Critical Contrast: Hennes & Mauritz (OTCMKTS:HNNMY) & Caleres (NYSE:CAL)

Hennes & Mauritz (OTCMKTS:HNNMY) and Caleres (NYSE:CAL) are both consumer discretionary companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, institutional ownership, profitability, analyst recommendations, earnings, valuation and risk.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings for Hennes & Mauritz and Caleres, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Hennes & Mauritz	3	4	0	0	1.57
Caleres	0	3	0	0	2.00

Volatility & Risk

Hennes & Mauritz has a beta of 1.17, indicating that its stock price is 17% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Caleres has a beta of 0.73, indicating that its stock price is 27% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Hennes & Mauritz and Caleres”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Hennes & Mauritz	$23.01 billion	1.00	$1.23 billion	$0.17	19.29
Caleres	$2.76 billion	0.15	-$6.69 million	$1.50	8.16

Hennes & Mauritz has higher revenue and earnings than Caleres. Caleres is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Hennes & Mauritz, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Hennes & Mauritz and Caleres’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Hennes & Mauritz	5.94%	33.70%	7.80%
Caleres	1.85%	7.84%	2.42%

Insider and Institutional Ownership

0.0% of Hennes & Mauritz shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 98.4% of Caleres shares are held by institutional investors. 3.1% of Caleres shares are held by company 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.

Dividends

Hennes & Mauritz pays an annual dividend of $0.07 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.1%. Caleres pays an annual dividend of $0.28 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.3%. Hennes & Mauritz pays out 41.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Caleres pays out 18.7% 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. Caleres is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Summary

Hennes & Mauritz beats Caleres on 8 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Hennes & Mauritz

H & M Hennes & Mauritz AB (publ) provides clothing, accessories, footwear, cosmetics, home textiles, and homeware for women, men, and children worldwide. It offers sportswear, shoes, bags, beauty products, activewear, jeans, and ready-to-wear; and interior products, including bed linens, dinnerware, textiles, furniture, and lighting. The company provides its products under the H&M, H&M HOME, H&M Move, H&M Beauty, COS, Weekday, Monki, & Other Stories, ARKET, Afound, and Singular Society brand names. In addition, it operates Sellpy, a broad digital platform for second-hand fashion and other products; and Creator Studio, a global platform for merchandise design and production, as well as provides solutions to extend the useful life of unwanted garments through reuse and recycling under Looper Textile name. The company offers its products through online and physical stores. H & M Hennes & Mauritz AB (publ) was incorporated in 1943 and is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden.

About Caleres

Caleres, Inc. engages in the retail and wholesale of footwear business in the United States, Canada, East Asia, and internationally. It operates through Famous Footwear and Brand Portfolio segments. The company offers licensed, branded, and private-label athletic, casual, and dress footwear products. The company provides brand name athletic, casual, and dress shoes, including Nike, Skechers, adidas, Vans, Crocs, Converse, Puma, Birkenstock, New Balance, Under Armour, Dr. Martens, Asics, Timberland, Bearpaw, Skechers, HeyDude, Franco Sarto, Rykä, Vince, Bzees, Veronica Beard, and Zodiac brands, as well as company-owned and licensed brands, such as LifeStride, Dr. Scholl’s Shoes, Blowfish Malibu, and Naturalizer. The company also operates naturalizer.com, naturalizer.ca, vionicshoes.com, samedelman.com, samedelman.co.uk, allenedmonds.com, allenedmonds.ca, drschollsshoes.com, lifestride.com, francosarto.com, ryka.com, bzees.com, and zodiacshoes.com, as well as Vince.com, blowfishshoes.com, and veronicabeard.com websites. In addition, it designs, sources, manufactures, and markets footwear to retail stores, such as online retailers, national chains, department stores, mass merchandisers, and independent retailers. Further, the company wholesales men’s footwear, apparel, leather goods, and accessories under the Allen Edmonds brand; footwear for women under LifeStride brand; Italian footwear Franco Sarto brand; athletic footwear for women under the Rykä brand; women’s shoe collection under the Vince brand; women’s footwear under the Bzees brand; and women’s footwear collection under Veronica Beard brand. The company was formerly known as Brown Shoe Company, Inc. and changed its name to Caleres, Inc. in May 2015. Caleres, Inc. was founded in 1878 and is headquartered in Saint Louis, Missouri.