Analyzing Kelly Services (KELYB) and Its Competitors

Kelly Services (NASDAQ:KELYB) is one of 203 publicly-traded companies in the “Professional Services” industry, but how does it weigh in compared to its peers? We will compare Kelly Services to similar businesses based on the strength of its analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, dividends, profitability, earnings, valuation and risk.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Kelly Services and its peers gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Kelly Services	$4.25 billion	-$254.10 million	-3.44
Kelly Services Competitors	$3.29 billion	$228.38 million	35.43

Kelly Services has higher revenue, but lower earnings than its peers. Kelly Services is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than its peers, indicating that it is currently more affordable than other companies in its industry.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings for Kelly Services and its peers, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Kelly Services	0	1	0	0	2.00
Kelly Services Competitors	1583	6445	9166	430	2.48

As a group, “Professional Services” companies have a potential upside of 26.34%. Given Kelly Services’ peers stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Kelly Services has less favorable growth aspects than its peers.

Profitability

This table compares Kelly Services and its peers’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Kelly Services	-6.73%	2.69%	1.19%
Kelly Services Competitors	-0.59%	20.60%	4.33%

Volatility and Risk

Kelly Services has a beta of 0.88, meaning that its stock price is 12% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Kelly Services’ peers have a beta of 0.97, meaning that their average stock price is 3% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

0.2% of Kelly Services shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 57.4% of shares of all “Professional Services” companies are held by institutional investors. 93.1% of Kelly Services shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 17.2% of shares of all “Professional Services” companies are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Dividends

Kelly Services pays an annual dividend of $0.30 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.1%. Kelly Services pays out -3.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. As a group, “Professional Services” companies pay a dividend yield of 2.5% and pay out -164.4% of their earnings in the form of a dividend. Kelly Services lags its peers as a dividend stock, given its lower dividend yield and higher payout ratio.

Summary

Kelly Services peers beat Kelly Services on 12 of the 15 factors compared.

Kelly Services Company Profile

Kelly Services, Inc. engages in staffing and workforce solutions. It operates through the following segments: Americas Staffing, Global Talent Solutions, and International Staffing. The Americas Staffing segment delivers temporary staffing, as well as direct-hire placement services, in a number of specialty staffing services, including office, education, marketing, electronic assembly, light industrial, science, engineering, and information technology in United States, Puerto Rico, Canada, Mexico and Brazil. The Global Talent Solutions segment offers outsourcing, consulting, and centrally delivered staffing business. The International Staffing segment relates to branch-delivered staffing business in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa region, as well as in the Asia Pacific. The company was founded by William Russell Kelly on October 7, 1946 and is headquartered in Troy, MI.