Contrasting Afya (AFYA) & Its Peers

Afya (NASDAQ:AFYA) is one of 166 public companies in the “Diversified Consumer Services” industry, but how does it contrast to its peers? We will compare Afya to related businesses based on the strength of its risk, earnings, valuation, institutional ownership, profitability, analyst recommendations and dividends.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for Afya and its peers, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Afya	2	3	4	0	2.22
Afya Competitors	1447	3454	5297	197	2.41

Afya presently has a consensus target price of $15.18, suggesting a potential upside of 41.41%. As a group, “Diversified Consumer Services” companies have a potential upside of 61.52%. Given Afya’s peers stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Afya has less favorable growth aspects than its peers.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Afya and its peers gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Afya	$662.01 million	$134.77 million	6.55
Afya Competitors	$3.24 billion	$219.39 million	15.46

Afya’s peers have higher revenue and earnings than Afya. Afya is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than its peers, indicating that it is currently more affordable than other companies in its industry.

Profitability

This table compares Afya and its peers’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Afya	20.55%	17.58%	9.09%
Afya Competitors	-3.87%	-29.68%	2.40%

Institutional & Insider Ownership

88.0% of Afya shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 48.4% of shares of all “Diversified Consumer Services” companies are owned by institutional investors. 19.8% of shares of all “Diversified Consumer Services” companies are owned by 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.

Dividends

Afya pays an annual dividend of $0.66 per share and has a dividend yield of 6.1%. Afya pays out 40.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. As a group, “Diversified Consumer Services” companies pay a dividend yield of 5.9% and pay out 36.4% of their earnings in the form of a dividend.

Volatility and Risk

Afya has a beta of 0.43, suggesting that its share price is 57% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Afya’s peers have a beta of 0.51, suggesting that their average share price is 49% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Afya peers beat Afya on 10 of the 15 factors compared.

About Afya

Afya Limited is a Brazilian medical education and digital health company. Its education business offers undergraduate medical degree programs, medical residency preparation, postgraduate courses and continuing education for health professionals. The company also provides digital tools and services for medical students and practicing physicians, including clinical reference, practice-management and learning resources. These offerings support professionals at different stages of their medical careers.