Reviewing Allstate (NYSE:ALL) and Sun Life Financial (NYSE:SLF)

Sun Life Financial (NYSE:SLF) and Allstate (NYSE:ALL) are both large-cap finance companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, earnings, valuation, profitability, risk and dividends.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

52.3% of Sun Life Financial shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 76.5% of Allstate shares are held by institutional investors. 1.5% of Allstate shares are held 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.

Profitability

This table compares Sun Life Financial and Allstate’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Sun Life Financial	7.66%	17.96%	1.08%
Allstate	18.97%	41.64%	9.82%

Dividends

Sun Life Financial pays an annual dividend of $2.73 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.4%. Allstate pays an annual dividend of $4.32 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.7%. Sun Life Financial pays out 63.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Allstate pays out 8.6% 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. Sun Life Financial has raised its dividend for 11 consecutive years and Allstate has raised its dividend for 15 consecutive years.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings and price targets for Sun Life Financial and Allstate, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Sun Life Financial	1	5	5	1	2.50
Allstate	4	10	5	2	2.24

Sun Life Financial currently has a consensus price target of $98.67, suggesting a potential upside of 21.39%. Allstate has a consensus price target of $266.89, suggesting a potential upside of 6.79%. Given Sun Life Financial’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Sun Life Financial is more favorable than Allstate.

Volatility and Risk

Sun Life Financial has a beta of 0.87, meaning that its stock price is 13% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Allstate has a beta of 0.15, meaning that its stock price is 85% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Sun Life Financial and Allstate”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Sun Life Financial	$40.60 billion	1.11	$2.68 billion	$4.28	18.99
Allstate	$69.35 billion	0.91	$10.28 billion	$50.08	4.99

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

Summary

Allstate beats Sun Life Financial on 11 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Sun Life Financial

Sun Life Financial Inc., a financial services company, provides savings, retirement, and pension products worldwide. The company operates in five segments: Asset Management, Canada, U.S., Asia, and Corporate. It offers various insurance products, such as term and permanent life; personal health, which includes prescription drugs, dental, and vision care; critical illness; long-term care; and disability, as well as reinsurance. The company also provides advice for financial planning and retirement planning services; investments products, such as mutual funds, segregated funds, and annuities; and asset and investment management products consisting of pooled funds, institutional portfolios, and pension funds. In addition, it offers real estate services; manages equity capital in various private and listed funds, as well as mezzanine debt, middle market direct lending, high-yield bonds, and syndicated loans; and operates as an investment grade fixed income investor, real estate investment management advisor, infrastructure investment manager, and alternative credit investment manager. The company was formerly known as Sun Life Financial Services of Canada Inc. and changed its name to Sun Life Financial Inc. in July 2003. Sun Life Financial Inc. was founded in 1871 and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada.

About Allstate

The Allstate Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, provides property and casualty, and other insurance products in the United States and Canada. It operates in five segments: Allstate Protection; Protection Services; Allstate Health and Benefits; Run-off Property-Liability; and Corporate and Other segments. The Allstate Protection segment offers private passenger auto and homeowners insurance; other personal lines products; and commercial lines products through agents, contact centers, and online. The Protection Services segment provides consumer product protection; protection and insurance products, including vehicle service contracts, guaranteed asset protection, road hazard tire and wheel, and paintless dent repair protection; and roadside assistance, device and mobile data collection services, and analytic solutions using automotive telematics information, as well as identity theft protection and remediation services. This segment also offers its products under various brands, including Allstate Protection Plans, Allstate Dealer Services, Allstate Roadside, Arity, Avail, and Allstate Identity Protection. The Allstate Health and Benefits segment provides life, accident, critical illness, short-term disability, and other health insurance products; stop-loss and fully insured group health products to employers; and short-term medical and medicare supplement insurance to individuals. The Run-off Property-Liability segment offers property and casualty insurance coverage that primarily relates to policies written during the 1960s through the mid-1980s. The Corporate and Other segment provides debt services, as well as non-insurance operations. It sells its products through agents, independent agents, call and contact centers, retailers, direct to consumer, wholesale partners, and affinity groups, as well as through online and mobile applications. The Allstate Corporation was founded in 1931 and is headquartered in Northbrook, Illinois.