Head to Head Review: Kelly Services (KELYB) and Its Competitors

Kelly Services (NASDAQ:KELYB) is one of 203 public companies in the “Professional Services” industry, but how does it contrast to its competitors? We will compare Kelly Services to related companies based on the strength of its valuation, risk, analyst recommendations, dividends, institutional ownership, profitability and earnings.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings and target prices for Kelly Services and its competitors, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Kelly Services	0	1	0	0	2.00
Kelly Services Competitors	1590	6465	9175	431	2.48

As a group, “Professional Services” companies have a potential upside of 27.38%. Given Kelly Services’ competitors stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Kelly Services has less favorable growth aspects than its competitors.

Profitability

This table compares Kelly Services and its competitors’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Kelly Services	-6.73%	2.69%	1.19%
Kelly Services Competitors	-0.13%	35.53%	4.39%

Insider & Institutional Ownership

0.2% of Kelly Services shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 57.4% of shares of all “Professional Services” companies are owned by institutional investors. 93.1% of Kelly Services shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 17.1% of shares of all “Professional Services” companies are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Kelly Services and its competitors revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Kelly Services	$4.06 billion	-$254.10 million	-3.34
Kelly Services Competitors	$3.39 billion	$228.38 million	33.64

Kelly Services has higher revenue, but lower earnings than its competitors. Kelly Services is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than its competitors, indicating that it is currently more affordable than other companies in its industry.

Dividends

Kelly Services pays an annual dividend of $0.30 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.2%. Kelly Services pays out -3.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. As a group, “Professional Services” companies pay a dividend yield of 2.5% and pay out -137.7% of their earnings in the form of a dividend. Kelly Services lags its competitors as a dividend stock, given its lower dividend yield and higher payout ratio.

Risk and Volatility

Kelly Services has a beta of 0.88, suggesting that its stock price is 12% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Kelly Services’ competitors have a beta of 0.97, suggesting that their average stock price is 3% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Kelly Services competitors beat Kelly Services on 13 of the 15 factors compared.

Kelly Services Company Profile

Kelly Services, Inc. engages in staffing and workforce solutions. It operates through the following segments: Americas Staffing, Global Talent Solutions, and International Staffing. The Americas Staffing segment delivers temporary staffing, as well as direct-hire placement services, in a number of specialty staffing services, including office, education, marketing, electronic assembly, light industrial, science, engineering, and information technology in United States, Puerto Rico, Canada, Mexico and Brazil. The Global Talent Solutions segment offers outsourcing, consulting, and centrally delivered staffing business. The International Staffing segment relates to branch-delivered staffing business in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa region, as well as in the Asia Pacific. The company was founded by William Russell Kelly on October 7, 1946 and is headquartered in Troy, MI.