C.H. Robinson Worldwide (CHRW) and Con-way (CNW) Financial Review

C.H. Robinson Worldwide (NASDAQ: CHRW) and Con-way (NYSE:CNW) are both transportation companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, valuation, earnings, profitabiliy, analyst recommendations, dividends and risk.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

87.3% of C.H. Robinson Worldwide shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.9% of C.H. Robinson Worldwide shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations and price targets for C.H. Robinson Worldwide and Con-way, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
C.H. Robinson Worldwide	3	6	3	0	2.00
Con-way	0	0	0	0	N/A

C.H. Robinson Worldwide presently has a consensus target price of $69.83, suggesting a potential upside of 3.89%. Given C.H. Robinson Worldwide’s higher probable upside, equities analysts clearly believe C.H. Robinson Worldwide is more favorable than Con-way.

Dividends

C.H. Robinson Worldwide pays an annual dividend of $1.80 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.7%. Con-way does not pay a dividend. C.H. Robinson Worldwide pays out 52.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. C.H. Robinson Worldwide has raised its dividend for 10 consecutive years and Con-way has raised its dividend for 3 consecutive years.

Profitability

This table compares C.H. Robinson Worldwide and Con-way’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
C.H. Robinson Worldwide	3.49%	37.41%	12.84%
Con-way	3.09%	14.75%	5.26%

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares C.H. Robinson Worldwide and Con-way’s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	EBITDA	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
C.H. Robinson Worldwide	$13.90 billion	0.68	$848.19 million	$3.40	19.77
Con-way	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

C.H. Robinson Worldwide has higher revenue and earnings than Con-way.

Summary

C.H. Robinson Worldwide beats Con-way on 10 of the 11 factors compared between the two stocks.

About C.H. Robinson Worldwide

C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc. is a provider of transportation services and logistics solutions through a network of offices operating in North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, New Zealand and South America. The Company’s segments include North American Surface Transportation (NAST), Global Forwarding, Robinson Fresh, and All Other and Corporate. The NAST segment provides freight transportation services across North America through a network of offices in the United States, Canada and Mexico. The primary services provided by Global Forwarding segment include ocean freight services, air freight services, and customs brokerage. The Robinson Fresh segment provides sourcing under the trade name Robinson Fresh. The All Other and Corporate segment primarily consists of Managed Services and Other Surface Transportation outside of North America. It develops global transportation and distribution networks to provide transportation and supply chain services throughout the world.

About Con-way

Con-way Inc. (Con-way) provides transportation, logistics and supply-chain management services for a range of manufacturing, industrial and retail customers. The Company’s business units operate in regional, inter-regional and transcontinental less-than-truckload and full-truckload freight transportation, multimodal freight brokerage and trailer manufacturing. The Company operates in three segments: Freight, Logistics and Truckload. The Freight segment consists of the operating results of the Con-way Freight business unit. Con-way Freight is a less-than-truckload motor carrier that utilizes a network of freight service centers to provide day-definite regional, inter-regional and transcontinental less-than-truckload freight services. The Logistics segment consists of the operating results of the Menlo Logistics (Menlo) business unit, which develops contract-logistics solutions. The Truckload segment consists of the operating results of the Con-way Truckload business unit.