Critical Survey: Marine Harvest ASA (OTCMKTS:MHGVY) versus Vital Farms (NASDAQ:VITL)

Marine Harvest ASA (OTCMKTS:MHGVY) and Vital Farms (NASDAQ:VITL) are both consumer staples companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, analyst recommendations, earnings, institutional ownership, valuation, profitability and risk.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

98.6% of Vital Farms shares are held by institutional investors. 3.9% of Vital Farms shares are held by company 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.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current recommendations for Marine Harvest ASA and Vital Farms, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Marine Harvest ASA	0	3	0	2	2.80
Vital Farms	1	8	5	0	2.29

Vital Farms has a consensus price target of $17.18, suggesting a potential upside of 84.16%. Given Vital Farms’ higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Vital Farms is more favorable than Marine Harvest ASA.

Risk & Volatility

Marine Harvest ASA has a beta of 0.92, suggesting that its stock price is 8% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Vital Farms has a beta of 1.08, suggesting that its stock price is 8% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Marine Harvest ASA and Vital Farms”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Marine Harvest ASA	$6.47 billion	1.74	$708.93 million	$1.42	15.02
Vital Farms	$759.44 million	0.53	$66.28 million	($0.04)	-233.25

Marine Harvest ASA has higher revenue and earnings than Vital Farms. Vital Farms is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Marine Harvest ASA, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Marine Harvest ASA and Vital Farms’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Marine Harvest ASA	11.19%	11.74%	5.29%
Vital Farms	0.02%	3.46%	2.25%

Summary

Marine Harvest ASA beats Vital Farms on 10 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Marine Harvest ASA

Mowi ASA, a seafood company, farms, produces, and supplies Atlantic salmon products worldwide. It operates through three segments: Feed, Farming, and Sales and Marketing. The company is involved in the salmon feed production, salmon farming and primary processing, and seafood secondary processing activities. It offers whole fish, plain and marinated fillets and steaks, hot- and cold-smoked salmon, burgers and tartars, patties, gravad, sushi, and breaded products under the Ducktrap, MOWI, and Supreme Salmon brands. The company was formerly known as Marine Harvest ASA and changed its name to Mowi ASA in December 2018. Mowi ASA was founded in 1964 and is headquartered in Bergen, Norway.

About Vital Farms

Vital Farms, Inc., a food company, provides pasture-raised products in the United States. It offers shell eggs, butter, hard-boiled eggs, and liquid whole eggs. The company was founded in 2007 and is headquartered in Austin, Texas.