Financial Contrast: Hennessy Advisors (HNNA) and Its Peers

Hennessy Advisors (NASDAQ:HNNA) is one of 1,743 publicly-traded companies in the “Capital Markets” industry, but how does it weigh in compared to its peers? We will compare Hennessy Advisors to related businesses based on the strength of its institutional ownership, profitability, risk, dividends, analyst recommendations, earnings and valuation.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings for Hennessy Advisors and its peers, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Hennessy Advisors	0	1	0	0	2.00
Hennessy Advisors Competitors	5565	20154	22496	642	2.37

As a group, “Capital Markets” companies have a potential upside of 24.53%. Given Hennessy Advisors’ peers stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Hennessy Advisors has less favorable growth aspects than its peers.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Hennessy Advisors and its peers gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Hennessy Advisors	$35.54 million	$9.96 million	9.95
Hennessy Advisors Competitors	$2.39 billion	$398.52 million	17.37

Hennessy Advisors’ peers have higher revenue and earnings than Hennessy Advisors. Hennessy Advisors 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.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

10.3% of Hennessy Advisors shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 30.6% of shares of all “Capital Markets” companies are owned by institutional investors. 36.0% of Hennessy Advisors shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 12.9% of shares of all “Capital Markets” companies are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Risk & Volatility

Hennessy Advisors has a beta of 0.48, indicating that its share price is 52% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Hennessy Advisors’ peers have a beta of 0.79, indicating that their average share price is 21% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Dividends

Hennessy Advisors pays an annual dividend of $0.60 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.8%. Hennessy Advisors pays out 57.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. As a group, “Capital Markets” companies pay a dividend yield of 3.2% and pay out 29.2% of their earnings in the form of a dividend.

Profitability

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

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Hennessy Advisors	24.77%	8.31%	5.48%
Hennessy Advisors Competitors	318.48%	79.19%	3.72%

Summary

Hennessy Advisors peers beat Hennessy Advisors on 12 of the 15 factors compared.

Hennessy Advisors Company Profile

Hennessy Advisors, Inc. is an employee owned investment manager. It provides its services to Hennessy Funds and investment companies. The firm launches and manages equity, fixed income, and balanced mutual funds. It invests in the public equity and fixed income markets across the globe. The firm primarily invests in growth stocks of companies. It conducts in-house research to make its investments. Hennessy Advisors, Inc. was founded in 1989 and is based in Novato, California with additional offices in Boston, Massachusetts and Chapel Hill, North Carolina.