Critical Comparison: Unitil (NYSE:UTL) and Brookfield Infrastructure Partners (NYSE:BIP)

Unitil (NYSE:UTL) and Brookfield Infrastructure Partners (NYSE:BIP) are both utilities companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, profitability, earnings, risk, valuation, dividends and analyst recommendations.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and price targets for Unitil and Brookfield Infrastructure Partners, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Unitil	0	4	1	0	2.20
Brookfield Infrastructure Partners	0	3	8	0	2.73

Unitil currently has a consensus target price of $56.50, indicating a potential upside of 5.10%. Brookfield Infrastructure Partners has a consensus target price of $45.33, indicating a potential upside of 16.69%. Given Brookfield Infrastructure Partners’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Brookfield Infrastructure Partners is more favorable than Unitil.

Dividends

Unitil pays an annual dividend of $1.90 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.5%. Brookfield Infrastructure Partners pays an annual dividend of $1.82 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.7%. Unitil pays out 59.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Brookfield Infrastructure Partners pays out 293.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Unitil has raised its dividend for 12 consecutive years and Brookfield Infrastructure Partners has raised its dividend for 18 consecutive years. Brookfield Infrastructure Partners is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

76.8% of Unitil shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 57.9% of Brookfield Infrastructure Partners shares are held by institutional investors. 2.2% of Unitil shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Unitil and Brookfield Infrastructure Partners”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Unitil	$536.00 million	1.83	$50.20 million	$3.17	16.96
Brookfield Infrastructure Partners	$23.10 billion	0.77	$771.00 million	$0.62	62.66

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

Volatility and Risk

Unitil has a beta of 0.31, meaning that its stock price is 69% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Brookfield Infrastructure Partners has a beta of 1.05, meaning that its stock price is 5% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Unitil and Brookfield Infrastructure Partners’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Unitil	9.49%	9.53%	2.80%
Brookfield Infrastructure Partners	3.51%	2.63%	0.71%

Summary

Brookfield Infrastructure Partners beats Unitil on 9 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Unitil

Unitil Corporation, a public utility holding company, engages in the distribution of electricity and natural gas. It operates through two segments, Utility Electric Operations, Utility Gas Operations. The company distributes electricity in the southeastern seacoast and state capital regions of New Hampshire, and the greater Fitchburg area of north central Massachusetts; and distributes natural gas in southeastern New Hampshire and portions of southern and central Maine, including the city of Portland and the Lewiston-Auburn area, as well as electricity and natural gas in the greater Fitchburg area of north central Massachusetts. It also operates 86 miles of interstate underground natural gas transmission pipeline that provides interstate natural gas pipeline access and transportation services primarily in Maine and New Hampshire. In addition, the company provides real estate management services. It serves approximately 108,100 electric customers and 87,500 natural gas customers. Unitil Corporation was incorporated in 1984 and is headquartered in Hampton, New Hampshire.

About Brookfield Infrastructure Partners

Brookfield Infrastructure Partners L.P. owns and operates utilities, transport, midstream, and data businesses in North and South America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific. The company's Utilities segment operates approximately 2,900 km of electricity transmission lines; 4,200 km of natural gas pipelines; 8.1 million electricity and natural gas connections; and 0.6 million long-term contracted sub-metering services. This segment also offers heating, cooling, and energy solutions; gas distribution; water heaters; and heating, ventilation, and air conditioner rental, as well as other home services. Its Transport segment offers transportation, storage, and handling services for merchandise goods, commodities, and passengers through a network of approximately 22,000 km of track; 5,500 km of track network; 9,800 km of rail; and 3,300 km of motorways. The company's Midstream segment offers natural gas transmission, gathering and processing, and storage services through approximately 15,000 km of natural gas transmission pipelines; 570 billion cubic feet of natural gas storage; 17 natural gas processing plants; and 10,600 km of gas gathering pipelines, as well as 525,000 tonnes polypropylene production capacity. Its Data segment operates approximately 228,000 operational telecom towers; approximately 54,000 kilometers of fiber optic cables; approximately 1 million fiber-to-the-premise connections; two semiconductor manufacturing facilities; and 70 distributed antenna systems, as well as 135 data centers and 750 megawatts of critical load capacity and an additional approximate 670 megawatts of contracted capacity. The company was incorporated in 2007 and is based in Hamilton, Bermuda. Brookfield Infrastructure Partners L.P. operates as a subsidiary of Brookfield Corporation.