Comparing Brighthouse Financial (NASDAQ:BHF) and AON (NYSE:AON)

AON (NYSE:AON) and Brighthouse Financial (NASDAQ:BHF) are both finance companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, dividends, earnings, profitability, institutional ownership, valuation and risk.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for AON and Brighthouse Financial, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
AON	2	6	12	0	2.50
Brighthouse Financial	0	7	0	0	2.00

AON presently has a consensus target price of $367.59, suggesting a potential upside of 25.76%. Brighthouse Financial has a consensus target price of $61.25, suggesting a potential upside of 28.22%. Given Brighthouse Financial’s higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Brighthouse Financial is more favorable than AON.

Profitability

This table compares AON and Brighthouse Financial’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
AON	22.27%	42.13%	7.57%
Brighthouse Financial	12.49%	17.24%	0.45%

Insider & Institutional Ownership

86.1% of AON shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 81.2% of Brighthouse Financial shares are held by institutional investors. 1.0% of AON shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 1.6% of Brighthouse Financial shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Risk & Volatility

AON has a beta of 0.7, meaning that its stock price is 30% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Brighthouse Financial has a beta of 0.83, meaning that its stock price is 17% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares AON and Brighthouse Financial”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
AON	$17.18 billion	3.61	$3.69 billion	$18.14	16.11
Brighthouse Financial	$6.35 billion	0.43	$433.00 million	$12.53	3.81

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

Summary

AON beats Brighthouse Financial on 11 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About AON

Aon Plc engages in the provision of risk, health, and wealth solutions. It focuses on risk capital including claim management, reinsurance, risk analysis, management, retention, and transfer; and human capital involving analytics, health and benefits, investments, pensions and retirement, talent and rewards, and workplace wellbeing. The company was founded in 1982 and is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland.

About Brighthouse Financial

Brighthouse Financial, Inc. provides annuity and life insurance products in the United States. It operates through three segments: Annuities, Life, and Run-off. The Annuities segment consists of variable, fixed, index-linked, and income annuities for contract holders’ needs for protected wealth accumulation on a tax-deferred basis, wealth transfer, and income security. The Life segment offers term, universal, whole, and variable life products for policyholders’ needs for financial security and protected wealth transfer. The Run-off segment manages structured settlements, pension risk transfer contracts, certain company-owned life insurance policies, funding agreements, and universal life with secondary guarantees. Brighthouse Financial, Inc. was founded in 1863 and is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina.