Navient (NAVI) versus Its Peers Critical Survey

Navient (NASDAQ:NAVI) is one of 120 public companies in the “Consumer Finance” industry, but how does it weigh in compared to its peers? We will compare Navient to related businesses based on the strength of its institutional ownership, earnings, profitability, dividends, risk, valuation and analyst recommendations.

Volatility & Risk

Navient has a beta of 1.17, indicating that its stock price is 17% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Navient’s peers have a beta of 1.26, indicating that their average stock price is 26% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings for Navient and its peers, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Navient	4	4	0	0	1.50
Navient Competitors	895	3363	5295	276	2.50

Navient currently has a consensus target price of $8.00, indicating a potential upside of 35.14%. As a group, “Consumer Finance” companies have a potential upside of 20.06%. Given Navient’s higher probable upside, equities analysts clearly believe Navient is more favorable than its peers.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

97.1% of Navient shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 45.7% of shares of all “Consumer Finance” companies are owned by institutional investors. 33.8% of Navient shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 22.0% of shares of all “Consumer Finance” companies are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Dividends

Navient pays an annual dividend of $0.64 per share and has a dividend yield of 10.8%. Navient pays out 120.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. As a group, “Consumer Finance” companies pay a dividend yield of 6.1% and pay out 34.6% of their earnings in the form of a dividend.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Navient and its peers top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Navient	$3.20 billion	-$80.00 million	11.17
Navient Competitors	$4.13 billion	$385.17 million	4.58

Navient’s peers have higher revenue and earnings than Navient. Navient is trading at a higher price-to-earnings ratio than its peers, indicating that it is currently more expensive than other companies in its industry.

Profitability

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

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Navient	1.79%	3.65%	0.18%
Navient Competitors	10.48%	-15.61%	2.01%

Summary

Navient peers beat Navient on 9 of the 15 factors compared.

About Navient

Navient is a U.S.-focused education finance company whose business has centered on managing student loan portfolios and providing loan servicing. Its services have included payment processing, borrower account support and repayment assistance for federal and private education loans, as well as asset-recovery and business-processing services. The company was formed in 2014 through the separation of SLM Corporation, commonly known as Sallie Mae. Navient later transferred federal student loan servicing operations to other providers, including a transfer to Maximus in 2021 and an agreement to move its remaining federal servicing accounts to MOHELA in 2024.