Contrasting Virtus Investment Partners (NASDAQ:VRTS) and ONEX (OTCMKTS:ONEXF)

Virtus Investment Partners (NASDAQ:VRTS) and ONEX (OTCMKTS:ONEXF) are both finance companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, risk, profitability, earnings, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership and valuation.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Virtus Investment Partners and ONEX”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Virtus Investment Partners	$819.58 million	0.99	$121.75 million	$17.55	6.97
ONEX	$899.00 million	5.95	$617.00 million	$6.68	10.50

ONEX has higher revenue and earnings than Virtus Investment Partners. Virtus Investment Partners is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than ONEX, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Volatility and Risk

Virtus Investment Partners has a beta of 1.41, indicating that its share price is 41% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, ONEX has a beta of 1.25, indicating that its share price is 25% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Dividends

Virtus Investment Partners pays an annual dividend of $9.80 per share and has a dividend yield of 8.0%. ONEX pays an annual dividend of $0.28 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.4%. Virtus Investment Partners pays out 55.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. ONEX pays out 4.2% 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.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

80.5% of Virtus Investment Partners shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 0.7% of ONEX shares are held by institutional investors. 6.4% of Virtus Investment Partners shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings and price targets for Virtus Investment Partners and ONEX, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Virtus Investment Partners	2	2	1	0	1.80
ONEX	0	2	3	0	2.60

Virtus Investment Partners presently has a consensus target price of $135.75, suggesting a potential upside of 11.00%. Given Virtus Investment Partners’ higher possible upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Virtus Investment Partners is more favorable than ONEX.

Profitability

This table compares Virtus Investment Partners and ONEX’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Virtus Investment Partners	13.42%	21.56%	5.27%
ONEX	63.83%	5.24%	4.21%

About Virtus Investment Partners

Virtus Investment Partners, Inc. is a publicly owned investment manager. The firm primarily provides its services to individual and institutional clients. It launches separate client focused equity and fixed income portfolios. The firm launches equity, fixed income, and balanced mutual funds for its clients. It invests in the public equity, fixed income, and real estate markets. The firm also invests in exchange traded funds. It employs a multi manager approach for its products. The firm employs quantitative analysis to make its investments. It benchmarks the performance of its portfolios against the S&P 500 Index. The firm conducts in-house research to make its investments. Virtus Investment Partners, Inc. was founded in 1988 and is based in Hartford, Connecticut.

About ONEX

Onex Corporation is a private equity firm specializing in acquisitions and platform acquisitions. The firm makes investments in buyouts, large- middle market, large-cap, mid-cap, and small-cap market and distressed companies. It also invests in recapitalization, growth capital, corporate carve-outs of subsidiaries and mission-critical supply divisions from multinational corporations, operational restructurings of undervalued businesses, and builds up. The firm seeks to invest in technology, electronics manufacturing services, industrial, aerospace, healthcare, retail, restaurants, industrials products, customer care services, metal services, building products, entertainment, gaming, cabinetry products, commercial vehicles, commercial and investment banking, financial services, commercial and multi-unit residential real estate. It invests in global businesses headquartered in North America, including United States and Canada, or Europe. The firm seeks to invest between $125 million and $1 billion in companies that have minimum revenues of $300 million. It does not consider size if the company is in an industry in which the firm already has presence. The firm seeks to make direct as well as co-investments through managed private equity, real estate and credit funds. It seeks to acquire a control position in its portfolio companies. Onex Corporation was founded in 1984 and is based in Toronto, Canada with additional offices in New York, New York; Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey; Boston, Massachusetts and London, United Kingdom.