Comparing AngloGold Ashanti (AU) & The Competition

AngloGold Ashanti (NYSE:AU) is one of 1,984 publicly-traded companies in the “Metals & Mining” industry, but how does it compare to its peers? We will compare AngloGold Ashanti to similar companies based on the strength of its dividends, institutional ownership, risk, profitability, analyst recommendations, valuation and earnings.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

36.1% of AngloGold Ashanti shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 16.1% of shares of all “Metals & Mining” companies are owned by institutional investors. 17.6% of shares of all “Metals & Mining” companies are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for AngloGold Ashanti and its peers, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
AngloGold Ashanti	0	3	8	3	3.00
AngloGold Ashanti Competitors	6414	22620	32331	1801	2.47

AngloGold Ashanti currently has a consensus target price of $118.35, indicating a potential upside of 28.86%. As a group, “Metals & Mining” companies have a potential upside of 28.06%. Given AngloGold Ashanti’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities research analysts plainly believe AngloGold Ashanti is more favorable than its peers.

Profitability

This table compares AngloGold Ashanti and its peers’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
AngloGold Ashanti	32.63%	39.17%	26.23%
AngloGold Ashanti Competitors	-1,161,736,352,322,426,600.00%	-52.89%	-2.07%

Dividends

AngloGold Ashanti pays an annual dividend of $0.50 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.5%. AngloGold Ashanti pays out 6.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. As a group, “Metals & Mining” companies pay a dividend yield of 10.3% and pay out 10.8% of their earnings in the form of a dividend.

Volatility & Risk

AngloGold Ashanti has a beta of 0.72, meaning that its stock price is 28% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, AngloGold Ashanti’s peers have a beta of 0.96, meaning that their average stock price is 4% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares AngloGold Ashanti and its peers revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
AngloGold Ashanti	$12.03 billion	$2.64 billion	11.94
AngloGold Ashanti Competitors	$5.08 billion	$278.94 million	-26.28

AngloGold Ashanti has higher revenue and earnings than its peers. AngloGold Ashanti is trading at a higher price-to-earnings ratio than its peers, indicating that it is currently more expensive than other companies in its industry.

Summary

AngloGold Ashanti beats its peers on 12 of the 15 factors compared.

About AngloGold Ashanti

AngloGold Ashanti is a global gold mining company that explores for, develops and operates gold mines. Gold is its primary product, and the company also produces silver and other by-products at some operations. The company’s operations and projects span Africa, Australia and the Americas. Its portfolio includes mines and development projects in countries such as Ghana, Tanzania, Guinea, Australia, Brazil and Argentina. AngloGold Ashanti was formed in 1998 through the consolidation of gold mining interests held by Anglo American in South Africa.