Analyzing BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) & Patria Investments (NYSE:PAX)

BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) and Patria Investments (NYSE:PAX) are both finance companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, dividends, institutional ownership, risk, profitability, analyst recommendations and earnings.

Profitability

This table compares BlackRock and Patria Investments’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
BlackRock	24.09%	14.90%	4.97%
Patria Investments	19.91%	38.68%	15.84%

Dividends

BlackRock pays an annual dividend of $22.92 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.1%. Patria Investments pays an annual dividend of $0.65 per share and has a dividend yield of 6.5%. BlackRock pays out 54.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Patria Investments pays out 147.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. BlackRock has raised its dividend for 16 consecutive years.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

80.7% of BlackRock shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 96.3% of Patria Investments shares are held by institutional investors. 1.9% of BlackRock shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 58.1% of Patria Investments shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Risk and Volatility

BlackRock has a beta of 1.41, meaning that its stock price is 41% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Patria Investments has a beta of 0.76, meaning that its stock price is 24% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares BlackRock and Patria Investments”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
BlackRock	$24.22 billion	6.83	$5.55 billion	$41.84	25.54
Patria Investments	$399.23 million	1.68	$73.40 million	$0.44	22.86

BlackRock has higher revenue and earnings than Patria Investments. Patria Investments is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than BlackRock, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings and target prices for BlackRock and Patria Investments, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
BlackRock	0	3	13	1	2.88
Patria Investments	3	1	1	0	1.60

BlackRock presently has a consensus price target of $1,308.06, suggesting a potential upside of 22.41%. Patria Investments has a consensus price target of $12.75, suggesting a potential upside of 26.74%. Given Patria Investments’ higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Patria Investments is more favorable than BlackRock.

Summary

BlackRock beats Patria Investments on 12 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks.

About BlackRock

BlackRock, Inc. is a publicly owned investment manager. The firm primarily provides its services to institutional, intermediary, and individual investors including corporate, public, union, and industry pension plans, insurance companies, third-party mutual funds, endowments, public institutions, governments, foundations, charities, sovereign wealth funds, corporations, official institutions, and banks. It also provides global risk management and advisory services. The firm manages separate client-focused equity, fixed income, and balanced portfolios. It also launches and manages open-end and closed-end mutual funds, offshore funds, unit trusts, and alternative investment vehicles including structured funds. The firm launches equity, fixed income, balanced, and real estate mutual funds. It also launches equity, fixed income, balanced, currency, commodity, and multi-asset exchange traded funds. The firm also launches and manages hedge funds. It invests in the public equity, fixed income, real estate, currency, commodity, and alternative markets across the globe. The firm primarily invests in growth and value stocks of small-cap, mid-cap, SMID-cap, large-cap, and multi-cap companies. It also invests in dividend-paying equity securities. The firm invests in investment grade municipal securities, government securities including securities issued or guaranteed by a government or a government agency or instrumentality, corporate bonds, and asset-backed and mortgage-backed securities. It employs fundamental and quantitative analysis with a focus on bottom-up and top-down approach to make its investments. The firm employs liquidity, asset allocation, balanced, real estate, and alternative strategies to make its investments. In real estate sector, it seeks to invest in Poland and Germany. The firm benchmarks the performance of its portfolios against various S&P, Russell, Barclays, MSCI, Citigroup, and Merrill Lynch indices. BlackRock, Inc. was founded in 1988 and is based in New York City with additional offices in Boston, Massachusetts; London, United Kingdom; Gurgaon, India; Hong Kong; Greenwich, Connecticut; Princeton, New Jersey; Edinburgh, United Kingdom; Sydney, Australia; Taipei, Taiwan; Singapore; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Washington, District of Columbia; Toronto, Canada; Wilmington, Delaware; and San Francisco, California.

About Patria Investments

Patria Investments Limited operates as a private market investment firm focused on investing in Latin America. The company offers asset management services to investors focusing on private equity funds, infrastructure development funds, co-investments funds, constructivist equity funds, and real estate and credit funds. Patria Investments Limited was founded in 1994 and is headquartered in Grand Cayman, the Cayman Islands.