Head-To-Head Contrast: MSCI (NYSE:MSCI) versus Piper Sandler Companies (NYSE:PIPR)

Piper Sandler Companies (NYSE:PIPR) and MSCI (NYSE:MSCI) are both finance companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, profitability, analyst recommendations, dividends, valuation, earnings and risk.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

72.8% of Piper Sandler Companies shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 90.0% of MSCI shares are held by institutional investors. 3.1% of Piper Sandler Companies shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 3.8% of MSCI shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares Piper Sandler Companies and MSCI’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Piper Sandler Companies	14.51%	21.92%	14.60%
MSCI	40.74%	-55.19%	24.90%

Dividends

Piper Sandler Companies pays an annual dividend of $0.80 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.2%. MSCI pays an annual dividend of $8.20 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.5%. Piper Sandler Companies pays out 18.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. MSCI pays out 44.9% 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. Piper Sandler Companies has increased its dividend for 1 consecutive years and MSCI has increased its dividend for 11 consecutive years. MSCI is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings for Piper Sandler Companies and MSCI, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Piper Sandler Companies	1	2	3	0	2.33
MSCI	0	0	11	1	3.08

Piper Sandler Companies currently has a consensus target price of $90.81, suggesting a potential upside of 39.02%. MSCI has a consensus target price of $709.08, suggesting a potential upside of 32.20%. Given Piper Sandler Companies’ higher possible upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Piper Sandler Companies is more favorable than MSCI.

Risk and Volatility

Piper Sandler Companies has a beta of 1.43, suggesting that its stock price is 43% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, MSCI has a beta of 1.24, suggesting that its stock price is 24% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Piper Sandler Companies and MSCI”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Piper Sandler Companies	$1.90 billion	2.42	$281.33 million	$4.32	15.12
MSCI	$3.33 billion	11.70	$1.20 billion	$18.28	29.34

MSCI has higher revenue and earnings than Piper Sandler Companies. Piper Sandler Companies is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than MSCI, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

MSCI beats Piper Sandler Companies on 14 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Piper Sandler Companies

Piper Sandler Companies operates as an investment bank and institutional securities firm that serves corporations, private equity groups, public entities, non-profit entities, and institutional investors in the United States and internationally. The company offers investment banking and institutional sales, trading, and research services for various equity and fixed income products. It provides advisory services, such as mergers and acquisitions, equity private placements, and debt and restructuring advisory; raises capital through equity and debt financings; underwrites municipal issuances; and offers municipal financial advisory and loan placement services, as well as various over-the-counter derivative products. The company also offers public finance investment banking services that focus on state and local governments, and cultural and social service non-profit entities, as well as the education, healthcare, hospitality, senior living, and transportation sectors. In addition, it provides equity and fixed income advisory and trade execution services for institutional investors, and government and non-profit entities. Further, the company is involved in the alternative asset management funds merchant banking and healthcare to invest firm capital and to manage capital from outside investors, as well as trading activities. The company was formerly known as Piper Jaffray Companies and changed its name to Piper Sandler Companies in January 2020. Piper Sandler Companies was founded in 1895 and is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

About MSCI

MSCI Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides critical decision support tools and solutions for the investment community to manage investment processes worldwide. The Index segment provides indexes for use in various areas of the investment process, including indexed financial product, such as ETFs, mutual funds, annuities, futures, options, structured products, and over-the-counter derivatives; performance benchmarking; portfolio construction and rebalancing; and asset allocation, as well as licenses GICS and GICS Direct. The Analytics segment offers risk management, performance attribution and portfolio management content, application, an integrated view of risk and return service, and an analysis of market, credit, liquidity, counterparty, and climate risk across asset classes; managed services, including consolidation of client portfolio data, review and reconciliation of input data and results, and customized reporting; and HedgePlatform to measure, evaluate, and monitor the risk of hedge fund investments. The ESG and Climate segment provides products and services that help institutional investors understand how ESG impacts the long-term risk and return of their portfolio and individual security-level investments; and data, ratings, research, and tools to help investors navigate increasing regulation. The All Other Private Assets segment includes real estate and infrastructure data, benchmarks, return-analytics, climate assessments and market insights; business intelligence to real estate owners, managers, developers, and brokers; and offers investment decision support tools for private capital. The Private Capital Solutions segment offers tools to help private asset investors across mission-critical workflows, such as sourcing terms and conditions, evaluating operating performance, managing risk and other activities supporting private capital investing. MSCI Inc. was incorporated in 1998 and is headquartered in New York, New York.