CNO Financial Group (NYSE:CNO) & Scor (OTCMKTS:SCRYY) Critical Analysis

CNO Financial Group (NYSE:CNO) and Scor (OTCMKTS:SCRYY) are both mid-cap finance companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, profitability, earnings, analyst recommendations, valuation, institutional ownership and risk.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and price targets for CNO Financial Group and Scor, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
CNO Financial Group	0	3	3	0	2.50
Scor	0	2	2	2	3.00

CNO Financial Group presently has a consensus price target of $43.60, suggesting a potential upside of 8.11%. Given CNO Financial Group’s higher probable upside, research analysts plainly believe CNO Financial Group is more favorable than Scor.

Dividends

CNO Financial Group pays an annual dividend of $0.68 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.7%. Scor pays an annual dividend of $0.13 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.3%. CNO Financial Group pays out 25.1% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Scor pays out 24.1% 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. CNO Financial Group has increased its dividend for 2 consecutive years. Scor is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Profitability

This table compares CNO Financial Group and Scor’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
CNO Financial Group	6.41%	16.63%	1.13%
Scor	3.41%	11.92%	1.44%

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares CNO Financial Group and Scor”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
CNO Financial Group	$4.38 billion	0.89	$404.00 million	$2.71	14.88
Scor	$17.45 billion	0.31	$4.33 million	$0.54	5.64

CNO Financial Group has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Scor. Scor is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than CNO Financial Group, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

95.4% of CNO Financial Group shares are held by institutional investors. 3.0% of CNO Financial Group 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.

Risk & Volatility

CNO Financial Group has a beta of 0.9, meaning that its share price is 10% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Scor has a beta of 0.87, meaning that its share price is 13% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

CNO Financial Group beats Scor on 12 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks.

About CNO Financial Group

CNO Financial Group, Inc., through its subsidiaries, develops, markets, and administers health insurance, annuity, individual life insurance, insurance products, and financial services for senior and middle-income markets in the United States. It offers Medicare supplement, supplemental health, and long-term care insurance policies; life insurance; and annuities, as well as Medicare advantage plans to individuals through phone, online, mail, and face-to-face. The company also focuses on sale of voluntary benefit life and health insurance products for businesses, associations, and other membership groups by interacting with customers at their place of employment. In addition, it provides fixed indexed annuities; fixed interest annuities, including fixed rate single and flexible premium deferred annuities; single premium immediate annuities; supplemental health products, such as specified disease, accident, and hospital indemnity products; and long-term care plans primarily to retirees and older self-employed individuals in the middle-income market. Further, the company offers universal life and other interest-sensitive life products; and traditional life policies that include whole life, graded benefit life, term life, and single premium whole life products, as well as graded benefit life insurance products. It markets its products under the Bankers Life, Washington National, and Colonial Penn brand names. The company was founded in 1979 and is headquartered in Carmel, Indiana.

About Scor

SCOR SE, together with its subsidiaries, provides life and non-life reinsurance products in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Americas, Latin America, and Asia Pacific. It operates in two segments, SCOR P&C and SCOR L&H. The SCOR P&C segment offers reinsurance products in the areas of property, motors, casualty treaties, credit and surety, decennial insurance, aviation, marine and energy, engineering, agricultural risks, and property catastrophes; specialties insurance products, including business solutions, political and credit risks, cyber, and environmental liability; and business ventures and partnerships. The SCOR L&H segment provides life reinsurance products, such as protection for mortality, morbidity, behavioral risks, disability, long-term care, critical illness, medical, and personal accident. This segment also provides financial solutions that combine traditional life reinsurance with financial components and provide liquidity, balance sheet, solvency, and income improvements to clients; longevity solutions that include products covering the risk of negative deviation from expected results due to the insured or annuitant living longer than assumed in the pricing of insurance covers provided by insurers or pension funds; and distribution solutions. In addition, it is involved in the asset management business. SCOR SE was founded in 1970 and is headquartered in Paris, France.