Head to Head Comparison: Lee Enterprises (LEE) vs. Its Rivals

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Lee Enterprises and its competitors top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Lee Enterprises	$517.10 million	-$25.84 million	-4.21
Lee Enterprises Competitors	$2.95 billion	-$39.20 million	13.63

Lee Enterprises’ competitors have higher revenue, but lower earnings than Lee Enterprises. Lee Enterprises is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than its competitors, indicating that it is currently more affordable than other companies in its industry.

Profitability

This table compares Lee Enterprises and its competitors’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Lee Enterprises	-7.21%	-325.44%	-6.55%
Lee Enterprises Competitors	-19.39%	-47.84%	-5.28%

Risk and Volatility

Lee Enterprises has a beta of 0.35, indicating that its stock price is 65% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Lee Enterprises’ competitors have a beta of 1.02, indicating that their average stock price is 2% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

39.2% of Lee Enterprises shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 38.7% of shares of all “Media” companies are owned by institutional investors. 54.2% of Lee Enterprises shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 18.3% of shares of all “Media” companies are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Lee Enterprises competitors beat Lee Enterprises on 5 of the 9 factors compared.

About Lee Enterprises

Lee Enterprises, Incorporated provides local news and information, and advertising services in the United States. The company offers digital subscription platforms; daily, weekly, and monthly newspapers and niche publications; and web hosting and content management services. It also provides advertising and marketing services, such as audience extension, search engine optimization, search engine marketing, web and mobile production, social media services, and reputation monitoring and management. In addition, the company offers integrated digital publishing and content management solutions for creating, distributing, and monetizing multimedia content for media publications, universities, television stations, and niche publications. Further, it provides commercial printing services; distributes third party products; and operates a digital marketing services agency. Lee Enterprises, Incorporated was founded in 1890 and is based in Davenport, Iowa.