Financial Survey: Scholastic (SCHL) and Its Competitors

Scholastic (NASDAQ:SCHL) is one of 257 public companies in the “Media” industry, but how does it compare to its peers? We will compare Scholastic to similar companies based on the strength of its earnings, profitability, analyst recommendations, dividends, institutional ownership, risk and valuation.

Volatility & Risk

Scholastic has a beta of 1.08, meaning that its share price is 8% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Scholastic’s peers have a beta of 0.96, meaning that their average share price is 4% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings and price targets for Scholastic and its peers, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Scholastic	0	3	0	0	2.00
Scholastic Competitors	2336	6933	10777	490	2.46

Scholastic presently has a consensus price target of $35.00, indicating a potential downside of 8.01%. As a group, “Media” companies have a potential upside of 29.24%. Given Scholastic’s peers stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Scholastic has less favorable growth aspects than its peers.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Scholastic and its peers revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Scholastic	$1.57 billion	$56.70 million	27.18
Scholastic Competitors	$3.00 billion	$35.12 million	-0.08

Scholastic’s peers have higher revenue, but lower earnings than Scholastic. Scholastic 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.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

82.6% of Scholastic shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 37.7% of shares of all “Media” companies are held by institutional investors. 12.8% of Scholastic shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 17.6% of shares of all “Media” companies are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

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

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Scholastic	3.60%	5.00%	2.22%
Scholastic Competitors	-18.60%	-48.00%	-4.99%

Dividends

Scholastic pays an annual dividend of $1.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.6%. Scholastic pays out 71.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. As a group, “Media” companies pay a dividend yield of 5.5% and pay out 285.7% of their earnings in the form of a dividend.

Summary

Scholastic beats its peers on 8 of the 15 factors compared.

About Scholastic

Scholastic is a global children’s publishing, education and media company. Its businesses include publishing and distributing children’s books, providing educational materials and classroom resources, and operating book clubs and book fairs that connect students with books. The company’s products and services include fiction and nonfiction books, classroom magazines, curriculum materials and digital learning resources. Scholastic serves schools, educators, families and young readers in the United States and international markets.