Critical Survey: Adecoagro (NYSE:AGRO) versus Feronia (OTCMKTS:FRNFF)

Adecoagro (NYSE:AGRO) and Feronia (OTCMKTS:FRNFF) are both consumer staples companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, valuation, dividends, earnings, risk, analyst recommendations and institutional ownership.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for Adecoagro and Feronia, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Adecoagro	2	4	1	0	1.86
Feronia	0	0	0	0	0.00

Adecoagro currently has a consensus target price of $12.12, suggesting a potential upside of 30.71%. Given Adecoagro’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe Adecoagro is more favorable than Feronia.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

45.3% of Adecoagro shares are held by institutional investors. 6.7% of Adecoagro shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares Adecoagro and Feronia’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Adecoagro	3.03%	-0.39%	-0.14%
Feronia	N/A	N/A	N/A

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Adecoagro and Feronia”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Adecoagro	$1.43 billion	0.93	-$8.35 million	$0.02	463.50
Feronia	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

Feronia has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Adecoagro.

Summary

Adecoagro beats Feronia on 7 of the 9 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Adecoagro

Adecoagro S.A. operates as an agro-industrial company in South America. The company mainly operates through three segments: Farming; Sugar, Ethanol and Energy; and Land Transformation. It engages in farming crops, rice and other agricultural products, dairy operations, and land transformation activities, as well as sugar, ethanol, and energy production activities. The company is involved in the planting, harvesting, and sale of grains, oilseeds, and fibers, including wheat, corn, soybeans, peanuts, cotton, sunflowers, and others; provision of grain warehousing/conditioning, handling, and drying services to third parties; and purchase and sale of crops produced by third parties. It also plants, harvests, processes, and markets rice; and produces and sells raw milk, UHT, cheese, and powder milk. In addition, the company engages in the cultivating and transforming of sugarcane into ethanol, sugar, and electricity. Further, it is involved in the identification and acquisition of underdeveloped and undermanaged farmland, and the realization of value through the strategic disposition of assets. Adecoagro S.A. was founded in 2002 and is based in Luxembourg, Luxembourg.

About Feronia

Feronia Inc., together with its subsidiaries, engages in the agribusiness in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The company produces crude palm oil and palm kernel oil. Feronia Inc. was founded in 1911 and is based in Vancouver, Canada.