Casey’s General Stores (NASDAQ:CASY) & Woolworths Group (OTCMKTS:WOLWF) Critical Contrast

Woolworths Group (OTCMKTS:WOLWF) and Casey’s General Stores (NASDAQ:CASY) are both consumer staples companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, dividends, risk, valuation and profitability.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current recommendations for Woolworths Group and Casey’s General Stores, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Woolworths Group	1	1	0	0	1.50
Casey’s General Stores	0	6	14	0	2.70

Woolworths Group currently has a consensus target price of $37.00, suggesting a potential upside of 27.63%. Casey’s General Stores has a consensus target price of $942.87, suggesting a potential upside of 22.30%. Given Woolworths Group’s higher possible upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Woolworths Group is more favorable than Casey’s General Stores.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Woolworths Group and Casey’s General Stores”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Woolworths Group	N/A	N/A	N/A	$1.96	14.82
Casey’s General Stores	$17.56 billion	1.62	$714.45 million	$19.16	40.24

Casey’s General Stores has higher revenue and earnings than Woolworths Group. Woolworths Group is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Casey’s General Stores, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Woolworths Group and Casey’s General Stores’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Woolworths Group	N/A	N/A	N/A
Casey’s General Stores	4.07%	18.73%	8.29%

Institutional and Insider Ownership

14.5% of Woolworths Group shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 85.6% of Casey’s General Stores shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.7% of Casey’s General Stores shares are owned 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.

Dividends

Woolworths Group pays an annual dividend of $1.36 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.7%. Casey’s General Stores pays an annual dividend of $2.60 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.3%. Woolworths Group pays out 69.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Casey’s General Stores pays out 13.6% 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. Casey’s General Stores has raised its dividend for 24 consecutive years.

Summary

Casey’s General Stores beats Woolworths Group on 12 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Woolworths Group

Woolworths Group Limited operates retail stores in Australia and New Zealand. It operates through Australian Food, Australian B2B, New Zealand Food, BIG W, and Other segments. The Australian Food segment procures and resells food and related products, and provides services to customers in Australia. The Australian B2B segment engages in procurement and distribution of food and related products for resale to other businesses, as well as provision of supply chain services to business customers in Australia. The New Zealand Food segment is involved in the procurement and resale of food and drinks, and provides services to retail customers in New Zealand. BIG W segment procures and resells discount general merchandise products to customers in Australia. The Other segment operates Quantium and MyDeal retail stores The company was formerly known as Woolworths Limited and changed its name to Woolworths Group Limited in December 2017. Woolworths Group Limited was incorporated in 1924 and is based in Bella Vista, Australia.

About Casey’s General Stores

Casey’s General Stores, Inc. engages in the provision of management and operation of convenience stores and gasoline stations. It provides self-service gasoline, a wide selection of grocery items, and an array of freshly prepared food items. The firm offers food, beverages, tobacco products, health and beauty aids, automotive products, and other non-food items. The company was founded by Donald F. Lamberti in 1968 and is headquartered in Ankeny, IA.