Financial Review: Costamare (NYSE:CMRE) & Matson (NYSE:MATX)

Costamare (NYSE:CMRE) and Matson (NYSE:MATX) are both industrials companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, profitability, dividends, earnings, analyst recommendations, valuation and risk.

Profitability

This table compares Costamare and Matson’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Costamare	39.66%	15.11%	8.47%
Matson	13.41%	16.94%	10.01%

Insider & Institutional Ownership

58.1% of Costamare shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 84.8% of Matson shares are held by institutional investors. 23.2% of Costamare shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 2.5% of Matson shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Risk & Volatility

Costamare has a beta of 1.07, indicating that its share price is 7% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Matson has a beta of 1.3, indicating that its share price is 30% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Dividends

Costamare pays an annual dividend of $0.50 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.2%. Matson pays an annual dividend of $1.52 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.7%. Costamare pays out 19.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Matson pays out 10.2% 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. Matson has increased its dividend for 13 consecutive years.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent recommendations for Costamare and Matson, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Costamare	0	3	0	1	2.50
Matson	0	0	5	1	3.17

Costamare presently has a consensus target price of $12.00, indicating a potential downside of 22.18%. Matson has a consensus target price of $239.25, indicating a potential upside of 3.53%. Given Matson’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Matson is more favorable than Costamare.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Costamare and Matson”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Costamare	$857.38 million	2.17	$364.58 million	$2.63	5.86
Matson	$3.46 billion	2.00	$444.80 million	$14.96	15.45

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

Summary

Matson beats Costamare on 13 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Costamare

Costamare Inc. owns and operates containerships and dry bulk vessels that are chartered to liner companies providing transportation of cargoes worldwide. As of March 19, 2024, it had a fleet of fleet of 68 containerships and 37 dry bulk vessels. The company was founded in 1974 and is based in Monaco.

About Matson

Matson, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, engages in the provision of ocean transportation and logistics services. It operates through two segments, Ocean Transportation and Logistics. The Ocean Transportation segment offers ocean freight transportation services to the domestic non-contiguous economies of Hawaii, Japan, Alaska, and Guam, as well as to other island economies in Micronesia. It primarily transports dry containers of mixed commodities, refrigerated commodities, food products, beverages, building materials, automobiles, and household goods; livestock; seafood; general sustenance cargo; and garments, footwear, e-commerce, and other retail merchandise. This segment also operates an expedited service from China to Long Beach, California, and various islands in the South Pacific, as well as Okinawa, Japan; and provides stevedoring, refrigerated cargo services, inland transportation, container equipment maintenance, and other terminal services to ocean carriers on the Hawaiian islands of Oahu, Hawaii, Maui, and Kauai, as well as in the Alaska locations of Anchorage, Kodiak, and Dutch Harbor. In addition, it offers vessel management and container transshipment services. The Logistics segment provides multimodal transportation brokerage services, including domestic and international rail intermodal, long-haul and regional highway trucking, specialized hauling, flat-bed and project, less-than-truckload, and expedited freight services; less-than-container load consolidation and freight forwarding services; warehousing and distribution services; supply chain management services, and non-vessel operating common carrier freight forwarding services. It serves the U.S. military, freight forwarders, retailers, consumer goods, automobile manufacturers, and other customers. The company was formerly known as Alexander & Baldwin Holdings, Inc. and changed its name to Matson, Inc. in June 2012. Matson, Inc. was founded in 1882 and is headquartered in Honolulu, Hawaii.