Caleres (NYSE:CAL) versus Mr Price Group (OTCMKTS:MRPLY) Critical Review

Mr Price Group (OTCMKTS:MRPLY) and Caleres (NYSE:CAL) are both consumer cyclical companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, risk, valuation, institutional ownership, profitability, analyst recommendations and dividends.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings for Mr Price Group and Caleres, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Mr Price Group	1	0	0	0	1.00
Caleres	0	2	1	0	2.33

Caleres has a consensus target price of $40.00, suggesting a potential upside of 7.82%. Given Caleres’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Caleres is more favorable than Mr Price Group.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

0.3% of Mr Price Group shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 98.4% of Caleres shares are held by institutional investors. 5.4% of Caleres shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Dividends

Mr Price Group pays an annual dividend of $3.71 per share and has a dividend yield of 40.6%. Caleres pays an annual dividend of $0.28 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.8%. Mr Price Group pays out 44.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Caleres pays out 5.8% 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.

Profitability

This table compares Mr Price Group and Caleres’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Mr Price Group	N/A	N/A	N/A
Caleres	6.10%	29.77%	8.14%

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Mr Price Group and Caleres’ gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Mr Price Group	N/A	N/A	N/A	$8.28	1.10
Caleres	$2.82 billion	0.46	$171.39 million	$4.81	7.71

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

Summary

Caleres beats Mr Price Group on 11 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Mr Price Group

Mr Price Group Limited, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a fashion retailer serving women, men, and children in South Africa and internationally. The company operates through Apparel, Home, Financial Services, and Telecoms segments. It offers clothing, underwear, footwear, cosmetics, babywear, school wear, and accessories; furniture and kids merchandise; sporting, outdoor, and fitness products comprising footwear, apparel, equipment, and accessories; women's smart and casual fashion and intimate wear; and home textile and decor products for bedroom, living-room, bathroom, kitchen, and dining-room. The company also provides credit services; insurance products; cellular products and services; mobile devices and accessories; and value-added services. It serves its customers through an omni-channel retail distribution of 2,702 corporate-owned stores and 8 franchised stores in Africa, as well as through its online channels. Mr Price Group Limited was founded in 1885 and is headquartered in Durban, South Africa.

About Caleres

Caleres, Inc. engages in the retail and wholesale of footwear business in the United States, Canada, East Asia, and internationally. It operates through Famous Footwear and Brand Portfolio segments. The company offers licensed, branded, and private-label athletic, casual, and dress footwear products. The company provides brand name athletic, casual, and dress shoes, including Nike, Skechers, adidas, Vans, Crocs, Converse, Puma, Birkenstock, New Balance, Under Armour, Dr. Martens, Asics, Timberland, Bearpaw, Skechers, HeyDude, Franco Sarto, Rykä, Vince, Bzees, Veronica Beard, and Zodiac brands, as well as company-owned and licensed brands, such as LifeStride, Dr. Scholl's Shoes, Blowfish Malibu, and Naturalizer. The company also operates naturalizer.com, naturalizer.ca, vionicshoes.com, samedelman.com, samedelman.co.uk, allenedmonds.com, allenedmonds.ca, drschollsshoes.com, lifestride.com, francosarto.com, ryka.com, bzees.com, and zodiacshoes.com, as well as Vince.com, blowfishshoes.com, and veronicabeard.com websites. In addition, it designs, sources, manufactures, and markets footwear to retail stores, such as online retailers, national chains, department stores, mass merchandisers, and independent retailers. Further, the company wholesales men's footwear, apparel, leather goods, and accessories under the Allen Edmonds brand; footwear for women under LifeStride brand; Italian footwear Franco Sarto brand; athletic footwear for women under the Rykä brand; women's shoe collection under the Vince brand; women's footwear under the Bzees brand; and women's footwear collection under Veronica Beard brand. The company was formerly known as Brown Shoe Company, Inc. and changed its name to Caleres, Inc. in May 2015. Caleres, Inc. was founded in 1878 and is headquartered in Saint Louis, Missouri.