Viking (NYSE:VIK) versus Madison Square Garden (NYSE:MSGS) Financial Analysis

Viking (NYSE:VIK) and Madison Square Garden (NYSE:MSGS) are both consumer discretionary companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, profitability, institutional ownership, risk, dividends, valuation and earnings.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for Viking and Madison Square Garden, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Viking	1	4	11	0	2.63
Madison Square Garden	0	6	3	0	2.33

Viking currently has a consensus price target of $90.71, indicating a potential upside of 8.23%. Madison Square Garden has a consensus price target of $342.20, indicating a potential downside of 3.04%. Given Viking’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Viking is more favorable than Madison Square Garden.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

98.8% of Viking shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 68.9% of Madison Square Garden shares are held by institutional investors. 19.1% of Madison Square Garden shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Viking and Madison Square Garden”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Viking	$6.66 billion	5.61	$1.15 billion	$2.69	31.16
Madison Square Garden	$1.04 billion	8.18	-$22.44 million	($0.93)	-379.50

Viking has higher revenue and earnings than Madison Square Garden. Madison Square Garden is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Viking, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Risk and Volatility

Viking has a beta of 1.57, suggesting that its share price is 57% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Madison Square Garden has a beta of 0.59, suggesting that its share price is 41% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Viking and Madison Square Garden’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Viking	18.23%	166.31%	10.51%
Madison Square Garden	-2.07%	N/A	-1.39%

Summary

Viking beats Madison Square Garden on 12 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Viking

Viking Holdings Ltd engages in the passenger shipping and other forms of passenger transport in North America, the United Kingdom, and internationally. It operates through River and Ocean segments. The company also operates as a tour entrepreneur for passengers and related activities in tourism. As of December 31, 2023, it operated a fleet of 92 ships, including 81 river vessels comprising 58 Longships, 10 smaller classes based on the Longship design, 11 other river vessels, and 1 river vessel charter and the Viking Mississippi; 9 ocean ships; and 2 expedition ships. The company was founded in 1997 and is based in Pembroke, Bermuda.

About Madison Square Garden

Madison Square Garden Sports Corp. operates as a professional sports company in the United States. The company owns and operates a portfolio of assets that consists of the New York Knickerbockers of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the New York Rangers of the National Hockey League. Its other professional franchises include development league teams, the Hartford Wolf Pack of the American Hockey League and the Westchester Knicks of the NBA G League. The company also owns Knicks Gaming, an esports franchise that competes in the NBA 2K League. In addition, it operates professional sports team performance centers, the Madison Square Garden Training Center in Greenburgh. The company was formerly known as The Madison Square Garden Company. Madison Square Garden Sports Corp. was incorporated in 2015 and is based in New York, New York.