Analyzing Virtus Investment Partners (NASDAQ:VRTS) and TPG (NASDAQ:TPG)

Virtus Investment Partners (NASDAQ:VRTS) and TPG (NASDAQ:TPG) are both finance companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, dividends, profitability, earnings, valuation, institutional ownership and analyst recommendations.

Risk & Volatility

Virtus Investment Partners has a beta of 1.48, suggesting that its stock price is 48% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, TPG has a beta of 1.49, suggesting that its stock price is 49% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Dividends

Virtus Investment Partners pays an annual dividend of $9.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.3%. TPG pays an annual dividend of $1.52 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.3%. Virtus Investment Partners pays out 54.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. TPG pays out -447.0% 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.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings and price targets for Virtus Investment Partners and TPG, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Virtus Investment Partners	2	1	1	0	1.75
TPG	0	7	6	0	2.46

Virtus Investment Partners currently has a consensus price target of $238.50, indicating a potential upside of 13.45%. TPG has a consensus price target of $63.00, indicating a potential downside of 5.55%. Given Virtus Investment Partners’ higher possible upside, equities analysts plainly believe Virtus Investment Partners is more favorable than TPG.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Virtus Investment Partners and TPG”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Virtus Investment Partners	$845.27 million	1.75	$130.62 million	$16.45	12.78
TPG	$2.39 billion	10.19	$80.09 million	($0.34)	-196.17

Virtus Investment Partners has higher earnings, but lower revenue than TPG. TPG is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Virtus Investment Partners, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Virtus Investment Partners and TPG’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Virtus Investment Partners	13.43%	20.64%	5.00%
TPG	0.69%	23.45%	7.85%

Institutional & Insider Ownership

80.5% of Virtus Investment Partners shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 94.0% of TPG shares are owned by institutional investors. 6.1% of Virtus Investment Partners shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 76.5% of TPG shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Summary

TPG beats Virtus Investment Partners on 10 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Virtus Investment Partners

Virtus Investment Partners, Inc. is a publicly owned investment manager. The firm primarily provides its services to individual and institutional clients. It launches separate client focused equity and fixed income portfolios. The firm launches equity, fixed income, and balanced mutual funds for its clients. It invests in the public equity, fixed income, and real estate markets. The firm also invests in exchange traded funds. It employs a multi manager approach for its products. The firm employs quantitative analysis to make its investments. It benchmarks the performance of its portfolios against the S&P 500 Index. The firm conducts in-house research to make its investments. Virtus Investment Partners, Inc. was founded in 1988 and is based in Hartford, Connecticut.

About TPG

TPG Inc. operates as an alternative asset manager in the United States and internationally. The company offers investment management services to TPG Funds, limited partners, and other vehicles. It also offers monitoring services to portfolio companies; advisory, debt and equity arrangement, and underwriting and placement services; and capital structuring and other advisory services to portfolio companies. In addition, the company invests in private equity funds, real estate funds, hedge funds, and credit funds. TPG Inc. was founded in 1992 and is based in Fort Worth, Texas. The company operates as a subsidiary of TPG GP A, LLC.