Contrasting Lumen Technologies (NYSE:LUMN) & Hellenic Telecom Organization (OTCMKTS:HLTOY)

Lumen Technologies (NYSE:LUMN) and Hellenic Telecom Organization (OTCMKTS:HLTOY) are both utilities companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, valuation, analyst recommendations, profitability, dividends, earnings and risk.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Lumen Technologies and Hellenic Telecom Organization”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Lumen Technologies	$12.12 billion	0.85	-$1.74 billion	($1.74)	-5.77
Hellenic Telecom Organization	$3.92 billion	2.29	$566.95 million	$0.71	15.39

Hellenic Telecom Organization has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Lumen Technologies. Lumen Technologies is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Hellenic Telecom Organization, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Dividends

Lumen Technologies pays an annual dividend of $1.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 10.0%. Hellenic Telecom Organization pays an annual dividend of $0.36 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.3%. Lumen Technologies pays out -57.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Hellenic Telecom Organization pays out 50.7% 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. Lumen Technologies is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Volatility & Risk

Lumen Technologies has a beta of 1.65, indicating that its stock price is 65% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Hellenic Telecom Organization has a beta of 0.22, indicating that its stock price is 78% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and recommmendations for Lumen Technologies and Hellenic Telecom Organization, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Lumen Technologies	1	10	0	0	1.91
Hellenic Telecom Organization	0	0	1	0	3.00

Lumen Technologies currently has a consensus target price of $7.91, indicating a potential downside of 21.29%. Given Lumen Technologies’ higher probable upside, equities analysts clearly believe Lumen Technologies is more favorable than Hellenic Telecom Organization.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

66.2% of Lumen Technologies shares are held by institutional investors. 2.3% of Lumen Technologies shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares Lumen Technologies and Hellenic Telecom Organization’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Lumen Technologies	-14.34%	N/A	-1.40%
Hellenic Telecom Organization	13.81%	30.98%	12.07%

Summary

Hellenic Telecom Organization beats Lumen Technologies on 9 of the 16 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Lumen Technologies

Lumen Technologies, Inc., a facilities-based technology and communications company, provides various integrated products and services to business and residential customers in the United States and internationally. The company operates in two segments, Business and Mass Markets. It offers dark fiber, edge cloud services, internet protocol, managed security, software-defined wide area networks, secure access service edge, unified communications and collaboration, and optical wavelengths services; ethernet and VPN data networks services; and legacy services to manage cash flow, including time division multiplexing voice, private line, and other legacy services, as well as sells communication equipment, and IT solutions. The company also provides high speed and lower speed broadband service to residential and small business customers; local and long-distance voice services, professional services, and other ancillary services; and federal broadband and state support programs. It serves its products and services under the Lumen, Quantum Fiber, and CenturyLink brands. The company was formerly known as CenturyLink, Inc. and changed its name to Lumen Technologies, Inc. in September 2020. Lumen Technologies, Inc. was incorporated in 1968 and is headquartered in Monroe, Louisiana.

About Hellenic Telecom Organization

Hellenic Telecommunications Organization S.A. provides telecommunications and related services to businesses and individuals primarily in Greece and Romania. It operates through OTE, COSMOTE Group, and Telekom Romania Mobile segments. The company offers fixed-line, Internet access, ICT, and TV production services; and international carrier services. It also provides mobile and satellite telecommunication, electronic money, e-commerce, financing, consultancy and security, real estate, insurance brokerage, training, wholesale telephony, retail, marketing, overdue accounts management, wholesale broadband, and infrastructure services. Hellenic Telecommunications Organization S.A. was incorporated in 1949 and is based in Athens, Greece. Hellenic Telecommunications Organization S.A. operates as a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom AG.