Barnes & Noble Education (BNED) & Sally Beauty Holdings (SBH) Head-To-Head Comparison

Sally Beauty Holdings (NYSE: SBH) and Barnes & Noble Education (NYSE:BNED) are both retail/wholesale companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, earnings, profitability, risk, dividends, institutional ownership and valuation.

Risk & Volatility

Sally Beauty Holdings has a beta of 0.65, suggesting that its share price is 35% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Barnes & Noble Education has a beta of 0.88, suggesting that its share price is 12% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings for Sally Beauty Holdings and Barnes & Noble Education, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Sally Beauty Holdings	1	7	3	0	2.18
Barnes & Noble Education	0	0	1	0	3.00

Sally Beauty Holdings presently has a consensus target price of $25.00, indicating a potential upside of 39.43%. Barnes & Noble Education has a consensus target price of $14.00, indicating a potential upside of 102.31%. Given Barnes & Noble Education’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Barnes & Noble Education is more favorable than Sally Beauty Holdings.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

69.0% of Barnes & Noble Education shares are held by institutional investors. 1.0% of Sally Beauty Holdings shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 2.4% of Barnes & Noble Education shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares Sally Beauty Holdings and Barnes & Noble Education’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Sally Beauty Holdings	5.89%	-80.60%	11.83%
Barnes & Noble Education	0.29%	1.15%	0.58%

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Sally Beauty Holdings and Barnes & Noble Education’s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	EBITDA	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Sally Beauty Holdings	$3.94 billion	0.60	$603.02 million	$1.64	10.93
Barnes & Noble Education	$1.87 billion	0.17	$78.29 million	$0.11	62.91

Sally Beauty Holdings has higher revenue and earnings than Barnes & Noble Education. Sally Beauty Holdings is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Barnes & Noble Education, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Sally Beauty Holdings Company Profile

Sally Beauty Holdings, Inc. is an international specialty retailer and distributor of professional beauty supplies with operations primarily in North America, South America and Europe. The Company operates through two business segments: Sally Beauty Supply and Beauty Systems Group (BSG). Sally Beauty Supply is a domestic and international chain of cash and carry retail stores, which offers professional beauty supplies to both salon professionals and retail customers primarily in North America, Puerto Rico, and parts of Europe and South America. BSG, including its franchise-based business Armstrong McCall, is a full service beauty supply distributor, which offers professional brands of beauty products directly to salons and salon professionals through its own sales force and professional-only stores (including franchise stores) in partially exclusive geographical territories in North America and parts of Europe.

Barnes & Noble Education Company Profile

Barnes & Noble Education, Inc. is a contract operator of bookstores on college and university campuses across the United States and a provider of digital education services. The Company offers a support system, and a retail and digital learning experience for students. Through its subsidiary, Barnes & Noble College Booksellers, LLC, the Company operates approximately 750 campus bookstores and the school-branded e-commerce sites for each store, serving over five million college students and their faculty. The Company offers a set of products and services to help students, faculty and administrators achieve their shared educational and social goals. Its suite of product offerings includes Textbook and Course Material Sales, Textbook and Course Material Rentals, General Merchandise, Trade, Digital Education and Brand Partnerships. The Company also offers other merchandise, such as laptops and other technology products, notebooks, backpacks, school and dormitory supplies and related items.