Head to Head Comparison: AllianceBernstein (NYSE:AB) and ONEX (OTCMKTS:ONEXF)

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

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings for AllianceBernstein and ONEX, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
AllianceBernstein	0	4	2	0	2.33
ONEX	0	1	4	0	2.80

AllianceBernstein presently has a consensus price target of $37.88, suggesting a potential upside of 8.42%. Given AllianceBernstein’s higher probable upside, equities research analysts plainly believe AllianceBernstein is more favorable than ONEX.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares AllianceBernstein and ONEX”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
AllianceBernstein	$343.43 million	9.47	$299.84 million	$3.38	10.34
ONEX	$899.00 million	6.34	$617.00 million	$6.68	11.18

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

Insider and Institutional Ownership

19.3% of AllianceBernstein shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 0.7% of ONEX shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.8% of AllianceBernstein shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Volatility and Risk

AllianceBernstein has a beta of 0.79, suggesting that its stock price is 21% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, ONEX has a beta of 1.25, suggesting that its stock price is 25% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Dividends

AllianceBernstein pays an annual dividend of $3.28 per share and has a dividend yield of 9.4%. ONEX pays an annual dividend of $0.28 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.4%. AllianceBernstein pays out 97.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. ONEX pays out 4.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend.

Profitability

This table compares AllianceBernstein and ONEX’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
AllianceBernstein	6.60%	25.94%	25.92%
ONEX	63.83%	5.24%	4.21%

Summary

ONEX beats AllianceBernstein on 9 of the 16 factors compared between the two stocks.

About AllianceBernstein

AllianceBernstein Holding L.P. is a publicly owned investment manager. The firm is a related adviser The firm manages separate client focused portfolios for its clients. The firm primarily invests in common and preferred stocks, warrants and convertible securities, government and corporate fxed-income securities, commodities, currencies, real estate-related assets and infation-protected securities. The firm employs quantitative analysis along with long-term purchases, short-term purchases, trading, short sales, margin transactions, option strategies including writing covered options, uncovered options and spread strategies to make its investments. The firm obtains external research to complement its in-house research. The firm was formerly known as Alliance Capital Management Holding LP. AllianceBernstein Holding L.P. was founded in 1967 and is based in Nashville,Tennessee.

About ONEX

Onex Corporation is a private equity firm specializing in acquisitions and platform acquisitions. The firm makes investments in buyouts, large- middle market, large-cap, mid-cap, and small-cap market and distressed companies. It also invests in recapitalization, growth capital, corporate carve-outs of subsidiaries and mission-critical supply divisions from multinational corporations, operational restructurings of undervalued businesses, and builds up. The firm seeks to invest in technology, electronics manufacturing services, industrial, aerospace, healthcare, retail, restaurants, industrials products, customer care services, metal services, building products, entertainment, gaming, cabinetry products, commercial vehicles, commercial and investment banking, financial services, commercial and multi-unit residential real estate. It invests in global businesses headquartered in North America, including United States and Canada, or Europe. The firm seeks to invest between $125 million and $1 billion in companies that have minimum revenues of $300 million. It does not consider size if the company is in an industry in which the firm already has presence. The firm seeks to make direct as well as co-investments through managed private equity, real estate and credit funds. It seeks to acquire a control position in its portfolio companies. Onex Corporation was founded in 1984 and is based in Toronto, Canada with additional offices in New York, New York; Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey; Boston, Massachusetts and London, United Kingdom.