Wingstop (WING) vs. Its Peers Critical Survey

Wingstop (NASDAQ:WING) is one of 382 public companies in the “Hotels, Restaurants & Leisure” industry, but how does it compare to its competitors? We will compare Wingstop to similar companies based on the strength of its earnings, profitability, risk, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, valuation and dividends.

Volatility and Risk

Wingstop has a beta of 1.81, suggesting that its share price is 81% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Wingstop’s competitors have a beta of 1.62, suggesting that their average share price is 62% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Dividends

Wingstop pays an annual dividend of $1.32 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.8%. Wingstop pays out 31.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. As a group, “Hotels, Restaurants & Leisure” companies pay a dividend yield of 3.2% and pay out 37.5% of their earnings in the form of a dividend. Wingstop has raised its dividend for 7 consecutive years.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations for Wingstop and its competitors, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Wingstop	1	5	22	1	2.79
Wingstop Competitors	3792	17200	25471	901	2.50

Wingstop currently has a consensus price target of $222.43, indicating a potential upside of 36.43%. As a group, “Hotels, Restaurants & Leisure” companies have a potential upside of 58.60%. Given Wingstop’s competitors higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Wingstop has less favorable growth aspects than its competitors.

Profitability

This table compares Wingstop and its competitors’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Wingstop	16.03%	-15.80%	18.12%
Wingstop Competitors	2.30%	-40.19%	2.09%

Institutional & Insider Ownership

48.6% of shares of all “Hotels, Restaurants & Leisure” companies are held by institutional investors. 0.5% of Wingstop shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 22.1% of shares of all “Hotels, Restaurants & Leisure” companies are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Wingstop and its competitors revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Wingstop	$696.85 million	$174.27 million	38.27
Wingstop Competitors	$3.69 billion	$247.14 million	-141.53

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

Summary

Wingstop beats its competitors on 9 of the 15 factors compared.

Wingstop Company Profile

Wingstop Inc., together with its subsidiaries, franchises and operates restaurants under the Wingstop brand. Its restaurants offer classic wings, boneless wings, tenders, and hand-sauced-and-tossed in various flavors, as well as chicken sandwiches with fries and hand-cut carrots and celery that are cooked-to-order. The company was founded in 1994 and is headquartered in Addison, Texas.