Matson (NYSE:MATX) versus Safe Bulkers (NYSE:SB) Head to Head Comparison

Safe Bulkers (NYSE:SB) and Matson (NYSE:MATX) are both industrials companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, profitability, dividends, valuation, analyst recommendations, risk and earnings.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current recommendations and price targets for Safe Bulkers and Matson, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Safe Bulkers	0	2	1	0	2.33
Matson	0	0	4	1	3.20

Safe Bulkers presently has a consensus target price of $6.00, indicating a potential downside of 33.26%. Matson has a consensus target price of $232.33, indicating a potential downside of 0.70%. Given Matson’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Matson is more favorable than Safe Bulkers.

Volatility & Risk

Safe Bulkers has a beta of 0.82, indicating that its stock price is 18% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Matson has a beta of 1.26, indicating that its stock price is 26% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Safe Bulkers and Matson”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Safe Bulkers	$275.74 million	3.32	$38.56 million	$0.78	11.53
Matson	$3.34 billion	2.09	$444.80 million	$14.96	15.64

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

Institutional and Insider Ownership

21.7% of Safe Bulkers shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 84.8% of Matson shares are held by institutional investors. 40.3% of Safe Bulkers 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 will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

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

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Safe Bulkers	28.29%	9.63%	5.77%
Matson	13.41%	16.94%	10.01%

Dividends

Safe Bulkers pays an annual dividend of $0.30 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.3%. Matson pays an annual dividend of $1.52 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.6%. Safe Bulkers pays out 38.5% 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 raised its dividend for 13 consecutive years.

Summary

Matson beats Safe Bulkers on 14 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Safe Bulkers

Safe Bulkers, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides marine drybulk transportation services. It owns and operates drybulk vessels for transporting bulk cargoes primarily coal, grain, and iron ore. The company has a fleet of 47 drybulk vessels having an aggregate carrying capacity of 4,719,600 deadweight tons. Its fleet consists of 10 Panamax class vessels, 11 Kamsarmax class vessels, 18 post-Panamax class vessels, and 8 Capesize class vessels. Safe Bulkers, Inc. was incorporated in 2007 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.