Head-To-Head Comparison: SES (OTCMKTS:SGBAF) and Lumen Technologies (NYSE:LUMN)

Lumen Technologies (NYSE:LUMN) and SES (OTCMKTS:SGBAF) are both mid-cap communication services companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, risk, earnings, dividends, valuation, analyst recommendations and institutional ownership.

Profitability

This table compares Lumen Technologies and SES’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Lumen Technologies	-8.65%	N/A	-1.56%
SES	-8.96%	-9.43%	-1.93%

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Lumen Technologies and SES”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Lumen Technologies	$11.83 billion	0.39	-$1.74 billion	($1.02)	-4.37
SES	$2.97 billion	0.86	-$107.48 million	($0.88)	-5.20

SES has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Lumen Technologies. SES is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Lumen Technologies, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

66.2% of Lumen Technologies shares are held by institutional investors. 2.3% of Lumen Technologies shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent recommendations and price targets for Lumen Technologies and SES, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Lumen Technologies	1	9	0	0	1.90
SES	2	1	1	0	1.75

Lumen Technologies presently has a consensus target price of $7.86, suggesting a potential upside of 76.17%. Given Lumen Technologies’ stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, research analysts clearly believe Lumen Technologies is more favorable than SES.

Risk & Volatility

Lumen Technologies has a beta of 1.84, meaning that its share price is 84% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, SES has a beta of 1.02, meaning that its share price is 2% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Dividends

Lumen Technologies pays an annual dividend of $1.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 22.4%. SES pays an annual dividend of $0.50 per share and has a dividend yield of 10.9%. Lumen Technologies pays out -98.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. SES pays out -56.8% 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. Lumen Technologies is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Summary

Lumen Technologies beats SES on 12 of the 16 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Lumen Technologies

Lumen Technologies, Inc., a facilities-based technology and communications company, provides various integrated products and services to business and residential customers in the United States and internationally. The company operates in two segments, Business and Mass Markets. It offers dark fiber, edge cloud services, internet protocol, managed security, software-defined wide area networks, secure access service edge, unified communications and collaboration, and optical wavelengths services; ethernet and VPN data networks services; and legacy services to manage cash flow, including time division multiplexing voice, private line, and other legacy services, as well as sells communication equipment, and IT solutions. The company also provides high speed and lower speed broadband service to residential and small business customers; local and long-distance voice services, professional services, and other ancillary services; and federal broadband and state support programs. It serves its products and services under the Lumen, Quantum Fiber, and CenturyLink brands. The company was formerly known as CenturyLink, Inc. and changed its name to Lumen Technologies, Inc. in September 2020. Lumen Technologies, Inc. was incorporated in 1968 and is headquartered in Monroe, Louisiana.

About SES

SES S.A. provides satellite-based data transmission capacity and ancillary services worldwide. The company offers content connectivity solutions, including network spanning satellite and ground infrastructure to create, deliver, and manage video and data solutions. It also provides data connectivity services through its fleet of geostationary earth orbit and medium earth orbit satellites to the aviation, cloud, cruise, energy, government, maritime, and telco and mobile network operator industries. In addition, the company offers video services, which includes end-to-end managed services to audience; and provides multi-screen and multi-device viewing experiences on linear channels, video-on-demand, streaming platforms, and social media sites for broadcasters, platform operators, and sports organizations. Further, it provides linear video aggregation and distribution, such as direct-to-home, direct-to-cable, and internet protocol TV households; channel management solutions comprising playout; and live feeds and redundancy features. The company was formerly known as SES Global SA and changed its name to SES S.A. in December 2006. SES S.A. was founded in 1985 and is headquartered in Betzdorf, Luxembourg.