Contrasting LeMaitre Vascular (NASDAQ:LMAT) & Medtronic (NYSE:MDT)

Medtronic (NYSE:MDT) and LeMaitre Vascular (NASDAQ:LMAT) are both healthcare companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, analyst recommendations, risk, institutional ownership, valuation, dividends and profitability.

Risk & Volatility

Medtronic has a beta of 0.56, suggesting that its stock price is 44% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, LeMaitre Vascular has a beta of 0.51, suggesting that its stock price is 49% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Medtronic and LeMaitre Vascular’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Medtronic	13.93%	14.78%	7.97%
LeMaitre Vascular	23.51%	15.33%	9.97%

Institutional & Insider Ownership

82.1% of Medtronic shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 84.6% of LeMaitre Vascular shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.3% of Medtronic shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 7.4% of LeMaitre Vascular shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations for Medtronic and LeMaitre Vascular, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Medtronic	1	9	18	0	2.61
LeMaitre Vascular	0	6	3	0	2.33

Medtronic currently has a consensus target price of $102.88, indicating a potential upside of 0.80%. LeMaitre Vascular has a consensus target price of $105.60, indicating a potential upside of 31.48%. Given LeMaitre Vascular’s higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe LeMaitre Vascular is more favorable than Medtronic.

Dividends

Medtronic pays an annual dividend of $2.88 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.8%. LeMaitre Vascular pays an annual dividend of $1.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.2%. Medtronic pays out 70.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. LeMaitre Vascular pays out 36.4% 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. Medtronic has raised its dividend for 49 consecutive years and LeMaitre Vascular has raised its dividend for 14 consecutive years. Medtronic is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Medtronic and LeMaitre Vascular”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Medtronic	$37.54 billion	3.48	$4.80 billion	$4.06	25.14
LeMaitre Vascular	$269.36 million	6.82	$57.73 million	$2.75	29.21

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

Summary

LeMaitre Vascular beats Medtronic on 9 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Medtronic

Medtronic plc develops, manufactures, and sells device-based medical therapies to healthcare systems, physicians, clinicians, and patients worldwide. Its Cardiovascular Portfolio segment offers implantable cardiac pacemakers, cardioverter defibrillators, and cardiac resynchronization therapy devices; cardiac ablation products; insertable cardiac monitor systems; TYRX products; and remote monitoring and patient-centered software. It also provides aortic valves, surgical valve replacement and repair products, endovascular stent grafts and accessories, and transcatheter pulmonary valves; and percutaneous coronary intervention products, percutaneous angioplasty balloons, and products. The company's Medical Surgical Portfolio segment offers surgical stapling devices, vessel sealing instruments, wound closure, electrosurgery products, surgical artificial intelligence and robotic-assisted surgery products, hernia mechanical devices, mesh implants, gynecology and lung products, and various therapies to treat diseases, as well as products in the fields of minimally invasive gastrointestinal and hepatologic diagnostics and therapies, patient monitoring, airway management and ventilation therapies, and renal disease. Its Neuroscience Portfolio segment offers products for spinal surgeons; neurosurgeons; neurologists; pain management specialists; anesthesiologists; orthopedic surgeons; urologists; urogynecologists; interventional radiologists; ear, nose, and throat specialists; and systems that incorporate energy surgical instruments. It also provides image-guided surgery and intra-operative imaging systems and robotic guidance systems used in robot assisted spine procedures; and therapies for vasculature in and around the brain. The company's Diabetes Operating Unit segment offers insulin pumps and consumables, continuous glucose monitoring systems, smart insulin pen systems, and consumables and supplies. The company was founded in 1949 and is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland.

About LeMaitre Vascular

LeMaitre Vascular, Inc. develops, manufactures, and markets medical devices and implants used in the field of vascular surgery worldwide. It offers human cadaver tissue cryopreservation services; angioscope, a fiberoptic catheter used for viewing the lumen of a blood vessel; embolectomy catheters to remove blood clots from arteries; thrombectomy catheters for removing thrombi in the venous system; occlusion catheters that temporarily occlude the blood flow; and perfusion catheters to perfuse the blood and other fluids into the vasculature. The company also provides artegraft biologic graft, a bovine carotid artery used for dialysis access; XenoSure biologic patches, used for closure of vessels after surgical intervention; VascuCel and CardioCel biologic patches, used in vessel repair, heart repair and reconstruction, and neonatal repairs; cardiovascular patches; carotid shunts that temporarily shunt the blood to the brain during the removal of plaque in a carotid endarterectomy surgery; biosynthetic vascular graft indicated for lower extremity bypass and dialysis access; and vascular grafts used to bypass or replace diseased arteries. In addition, it offers radiopaque tape, a medical-grade tape applied to the skin that enables surgeons and interventionalists to cross-refer between the inside and the outside of a patient’s body and allows them to locate tributaries or lesions beneath the skin. Further, the company provides valvulotomes, which cut or disrupt valves in the saphenous vein to function as an artery to carry blood past diseased arteries to the lower leg or the foot; and closure systems to attach vessels to one another with titanium clips instead of sutures. It markets its products through a direct sales force and distributors. The company was formerly known as Vascutech, Inc. and changed its name to LeMaitre Vascular, Inc. in April 2001. LeMaitre Vascular, Inc. was incorporated in 1983 and is headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts.