BJ’s Wholesale Club (NYSE:BJ) & Edgewell Personal Care (NYSE:EPC) Critical Analysis

BJ’s Wholesale Club (NYSE:BJ) and Edgewell Personal Care (NYSE:EPC) are both consumer staples companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, valuation, earnings, profitability, dividends, risk and institutional ownership.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for BJ’s Wholesale Club and Edgewell Personal Care, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
BJ’s Wholesale Club	1	8	9	0	2.44
Edgewell Personal Care	1	4	3	0	2.25

BJ’s Wholesale Club currently has a consensus price target of $105.27, suggesting a potential upside of 18.82%. Edgewell Personal Care has a consensus price target of $24.50, suggesting a potential upside of 24.14%. Given Edgewell Personal Care’s higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Edgewell Personal Care is more favorable than BJ’s Wholesale Club.

Risk & Volatility

BJ’s Wholesale Club has a beta of 0.23, indicating that its share price is 77% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Edgewell Personal Care has a beta of 0.48, indicating that its share price is 52% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares BJ’s Wholesale Club and Edgewell Personal Care’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
BJ’s Wholesale Club	2.62%	26.67%	7.59%
Edgewell Personal Care	-3.69%	6.31%	2.57%

Institutional and Insider Ownership

98.6% of BJ’s Wholesale Club shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 91.9% of Edgewell Personal Care shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.1% of BJ’s Wholesale Club shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 3.0% of Edgewell Personal Care shares are owned by 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.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares BJ’s Wholesale Club and Edgewell Personal Care”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
BJ’s Wholesale Club	$21.97 billion	0.52	$578.38 million	$4.35	20.37
Edgewell Personal Care	$2.23 billion	0.41	$25.40 million	($1.67)	-11.82

BJ’s Wholesale Club has higher revenue and earnings than Edgewell Personal Care. Edgewell Personal Care is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than BJ’s Wholesale Club, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

BJ’s Wholesale Club beats Edgewell Personal Care on 11 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About BJ’s Wholesale Club

BJ’s Wholesale Club Holdings, Inc. engages in the operation of membership warehouse clubs. Its product categories include grocery, household and pet, television and electronics, furniture, computer and tablets, patio and outdoor living, lawn and garden, baby and kids, toys, home, health and beauty, appliances, and jewelry. The company was founded in 1984 and is headquartered in Marlborough, MA.

About Edgewell Personal Care

Edgewell Personal Care Company is a manufacturer and marketer of personal care products in the wet shave, sun and skin care, feminine care and infant care categories. As of September 30, 2016, the Company had a portfolio of over 25 brands. It manages its business in four segments: Wet Shave, Sun and Skin Care, Feminine Care and All Other. Its Wet shave products are sold under the Schick, Wilkinson Sword, Edge, Skintimate, Shave Guard and Personna brand names. Its Sun and Skin Care products are sold under the Banana Boat, Hawaiian Tropic, Wet Ones and Playtex brand names and offers Wet Ones, portable hand wipes category, and Playtex household gloves, the branded household glove in the United States. Its Feminine Care segment markets its products under the Playtex, Stayfree, Carefree and o.b. brands and markets pads and liners. Its All Other segment includes infant care, pet care and miscellaneous other products.