Reviewing Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ) & BT Group PLC (BT)

BT Group PLC (NYSE: BT) and Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ) are both large-cap utilities companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their risk, institutional ownership, profitabiliy, earnings, dividends, valuation and analyst recommendations.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

1.0% of BT Group PLC shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 62.4% of Verizon Communications shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.1% of Verizon Communications shares 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.

Risk and Volatility

BT Group PLC has a beta of 1.05, suggesting that its share price is 5% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Verizon Communications has a beta of 0.56, suggesting that its share price is 44% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings for BT Group PLC and Verizon Communications, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
BT Group PLC	3	7	8	0	2.28
Verizon Communications	0	20	5	0	2.20

BT Group PLC presently has a consensus price target of $357.94, indicating a potential upside of 1,617.57%. Verizon Communications has a consensus price target of $52.87, indicating a potential upside of 8.21%. Given BT Group PLC’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, research analysts plainly believe BT Group PLC is more favorable than Verizon Communications.

Profitability

This table compares BT Group PLC and Verizon Communications’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
BT Group PLC	7.14%	40.09%	6.79%
Verizon Communications	12.88%	63.06%	6.27%

Dividends

BT Group PLC pays an annual dividend of $0.90 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.3%. Verizon Communications pays an annual dividend of $2.31 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.7%. BT Group PLC pays out 86.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Verizon Communications pays out 59.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. BT Group PLC has increased its dividend for 10 consecutive years and Verizon Communications has increased its dividend for 5 consecutive years. Verizon Communications is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares BT Group PLC and Verizon Communications’ gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	EBITDA	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
BT Group PLC	$31.28 billion	1.32	$8.89 billion	$1.04	20.04
Verizon Communications	$123.64 billion	1.61	$46.55 billion	$3.90	12.53

Verizon Communications has higher revenue and earnings than BT Group PLC. Verizon Communications is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than BT Group PLC, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

Verizon Communications beats BT Group PLC on 11 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

BT Group PLC Company Profile

BT Group plc is a communications services company. The Company is engaged in selling fixed-voice services, broadband, mobile and television products and services, as well as managed networked information technology (IT) solutions and cyber security protection. Its segments include Consumer, which provides fixed-voice, broadband, TV and mobile services; EE, which is a mobile network operator in the United Kingdom and provides mobile and fixed communications services to consumers; Business and Public Sector, which provides communications and IT services to businesses and the public sector in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland (RoI) ;Global Services, which provides managed networked IT services to corporate customers; Wholesale and Ventures, which provides fixed and mobile services to communications providers (CPs); and Openreach, which provides copper and fiber connections between its exchanges and homes and businesses.

Verizon Communications Company Profile

Verizon Communications Inc. is a holding company. The Company, through its subsidiaries, provides communications, information and entertainment products and services to consumers, businesses and governmental agencies. Its segments include Wireless and Wireline. The Wireless segment offers communications products and services, including wireless voice and data services and equipment sales, to consumer, business and government customers across the United States. The Wireline segment offers voice, data and video communications products and services, such as broadband video, data center and cloud services, security and managed network services, and local and long distance voice services. The Company has combined Yahoo! Inc.’s operating assets with its existing AOL Inc. business to create a new subsidiary, Oath Inc., owns a diverse house of more than 50 media and technology brands. The Oath portfolio includes HuffPost, Yahoo Sports, AOL.com, MAKERS, Tumblr, Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Mail.