Financial Analysis: Liberty Global (LBTYK) and The Competition

Liberty Global (NASDAQ:LBTYK) is one of 257 public companies in the “Media” industry, but how does it compare to its competitors? We will compare Liberty Global to similar companies based on the strength of its analyst recommendations, earnings, profitability, dividends, institutional ownership, valuation and risk.

Volatility and Risk

Liberty Global has a beta of 1, indicating that its share price has a similar volatility profile to the S&P 500.Comparatively, Liberty Global’s competitors have a beta of 0.96, indicating that their average share price is 4% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Liberty Global and its competitors’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Liberty Global	-44.40%	-25.14%	-9.55%
Liberty Global Competitors	-18.35%	-47.57%	-4.60%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and target prices for Liberty Global and its competitors, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Liberty Global	1	0	0	0	1.00
Liberty Global Competitors	2324	6912	10759	489	2.46

As a group, “Media” companies have a potential upside of 25.70%. Given Liberty Global’s competitors stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Liberty Global has less favorable growth aspects than its competitors.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

46.1% of Liberty Global shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 38.1% of shares of all “Media” companies are owned by institutional investors. 9.9% of Liberty Global shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 17.5% of shares of all “Media” companies are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Liberty Global and its competitors top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Liberty Global	$4.88 billion	-$7.14 billion	-1.32
Liberty Global Competitors	$3.00 billion	$35.12 million	7.11

Liberty Global has higher revenue, but lower earnings than its competitors. Liberty Global is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than its competitors, indicating that it is currently more affordable than other companies in its industry.

Summary

Liberty Global competitors beat Liberty Global on 9 of the 13 factors compared.

About Liberty Global

Liberty Global Ltd., together with its subsidiaries, provides broadband internet, video, fixed-line telephony, and mobile communications services to residential and business customers. It offers value-added broadband services, such as WiFi features, security, anti-virus, firewall, spam protection, smart home services, online storage solutions, and web spaces; and Connect Box that delivers in-home Wi-Fi service. The company provides various tiers of digital video programming and audio services, as well as digital video recorders and multimedia home gateway systems; Horizon 5, a cloud-based, multi-screen entertainment platform that combines linear television, including recording and replay features and video-on-demand services; Horizon Go, an online mobile app; and channels, including general entertainment, sports, movies, series, documentaries, lifestyles, news, adult, children, and ethnic and foreign channels. In addition, it offers postpaid and prepaid mobile services; circuit-switched telephony services; and personal call manager, unified messaging, and a second or third phone line at an incremental cost. Further, the company offers business services comprising voice, advanced data, video, wireless, cloud-based services, and mobile and converged fixed-mobile services to small or home offices, small businesses, and medium and large enterprises, as well as on a wholesale basis to other operators. It operates in Belgium, Switzerland, Ireland, Slovakia, and internationally. Liberty Global Ltd. was founded in 2004 and is based in Hamilton, Bermuda.