Reviewing Hennessy Advisors (HNNA) and Its Peers

Hennessy Advisors (NASDAQ:HNNA) is one of 1,744 publicly-traded companies in the “Capital Markets” industry, but how does it weigh in compared to its peers? We will compare Hennessy Advisors to related companies based on the strength of its valuation, profitability, risk, dividends, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership and earnings.

Dividends

Hennessy Advisors pays an annual dividend of $0.60 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.8%. Hennessy Advisors pays out 57.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. As a group, “Capital Markets” companies pay a dividend yield of 3.2% and pay out 30.0% of their earnings in the form of a dividend.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and price targets for Hennessy Advisors and its peers, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Hennessy Advisors	0	1	0	0	2.00
Hennessy Advisors Competitors	5551	20124	22459	642	2.37

As a group, “Capital Markets” companies have a potential upside of 24.42%. Given Hennessy Advisors’ peers stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Hennessy Advisors has less favorable growth aspects than its peers.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

10.3% of Hennessy Advisors shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 30.5% of shares of all “Capital Markets” companies are owned by institutional investors. 36.0% of Hennessy Advisors shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 13.0% of shares of all “Capital Markets” companies are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Risk & Volatility

Hennessy Advisors has a beta of 0.48, indicating that its stock price is 52% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Hennessy Advisors’ peers have a beta of 0.82, indicating that their average stock price is 18% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Hennessy Advisors and its peers’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Hennessy Advisors	24.77%	8.31%	5.48%
Hennessy Advisors Competitors	318.34%	79.19%	3.72%

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Hennessy Advisors and its peers revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Hennessy Advisors	$33.34 million	$9.96 million	9.95
Hennessy Advisors Competitors	$5.22 billion	$399.10 million	17.59

Hennessy Advisors’ peers have higher revenue and earnings than Hennessy Advisors. Hennessy Advisors is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than its peers, indicating that it is currently more affordable than other companies in its industry.

Summary

Hennessy Advisors peers beat Hennessy Advisors on 12 of the 15 factors compared.

About Hennessy Advisors

Hennessy Advisors, Inc. is an employee owned investment manager. It provides its services to Hennessy Funds and investment companies. The firm launches and manages equity, fixed income, and balanced mutual funds. It invests in the public equity and fixed income markets across the globe. The firm primarily invests in growth stocks of companies. It conducts in-house research to make its investments. Hennessy Advisors, Inc. was founded in 1989 and is based in Novato, California with additional offices in Boston, Massachusetts and Chapel Hill, North Carolina.