PhenixFIN (NYSE:PFX) versus Cohen & Steers (NYSE:CNS) Financial Review

PhenixFIN (NYSE:PFX) and Cohen & Steers (NYSE:CNS) are both finance companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, profitability, earnings, valuation, dividends, institutional ownership and risk.

Profitability

This table compares PhenixFIN and Cohen & Steers’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
PhenixFIN	72.98%	2.95%	1.68%
Cohen & Steers	28.82%	27.41%	19.58%

Dividends

PhenixFIN pays an annual dividend of $0.48 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.1%. Cohen & Steers pays an annual dividend of $2.68 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.7%. PhenixFIN pays out 19.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Cohen & Steers pays out 82.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Cohen & Steers has increased its dividend for 16 consecutive years. Cohen & Steers is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

43.3% of PhenixFIN shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 51.5% of Cohen & Steers shares are held by institutional investors. 25.2% of PhenixFIN shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 45.4% of Cohen & Steers shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and recommmendations for PhenixFIN and Cohen & Steers, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
PhenixFIN	0	0	0	1	4.00
Cohen & Steers	0	2	1	0	2.33

Cohen & Steers has a consensus price target of $88.00, suggesting a potential upside of 20.24%. Given Cohen & Steers’ higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Cohen & Steers is more favorable than PhenixFIN.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares PhenixFIN and Cohen & Steers”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
PhenixFIN	$14.16 million	6.16	$18.62 million	$2.41	18.74
Cohen & Steers	$556.12 million	6.77	$153.22 million	$3.26	22.45

Cohen & Steers has higher revenue and earnings than PhenixFIN. PhenixFIN is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Cohen & Steers, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Volatility & Risk

PhenixFIN has a beta of 0.32, meaning that its stock price is 68% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Cohen & Steers has a beta of 1.22, meaning that its stock price is 22% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Cohen & Steers beats PhenixFIN on 14 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks.

About PhenixFIN

PhenixFIN Corporation is a business development company. The firm seeks to invest in privately negotiated debt and equity securities of small and middle market companies. It primarily invests in the following sectors: business services; buildings and real estate; automobile; oil and gas; aerospace and defense; home and office furnishings, housewares, and durable consumer products; healthcare, education and childcare; personal, food, and miscellaneous services; retail stores, diversified or conglomerate manufacturing; telecommunications; mining, steel, iron, and non-precious metals; leisure, amusement, motion pictures, and entertainment; chemicals, plastics, and rubber; finance; personal and nondurable consumer products (manufacturing only); beverage, food, and tobacco; containers, packaging, and glass; structure finance securities; machinery (non-agriculture, non-construction, non-electric); diversified or conglomerate service; restaurant and franchise; electronics; and cargo transport. The fund seeks to invest in companies located in North America. The fund targets private debt transactions in companies with enterprise values or asset values between $25 million and $250 million. The fund seeks to invest in companies with debt investment values between $10 million and $50 million. It exits its investments between three years and seven years; it holds most of its investments to maturity or repayment, but may realize or sell some investments earlier. The fund may take a board seat on its investee companies and can also offer managerial assistance to certain portfolio companies. It structures its investments as first lien senior secured loans, second lien senior secured loans, senior secured notes, senior subordinated notes, subordinate notes, unitranche loans, and seeks warrants or other equity participation. The fund may co-invest in privately negotiated transactions under certain conditions. PhenixFIN Corporation was founded in 2010 and is headquartered in New York, New York.

About Cohen & Steers

Cohen & Steers, Inc. is a holding company, which operates as an investment manager specializing in liquid real assets, which include real estate securities, listed infrastructure, commodities, natural resource equities, preferred securities, and other income solutions. It manages investment vehicles, such as institutional accounts, open-end funds and closed-end funds. The company was founded by Martin Cohen and Robert Hamilton Steers in 1986 and is headquartered in New York, NY.