Financial Review: Cabot (CBT) and Its Peers

Cabot (NYSE:CBT) is one of 295 public companies in the “Chemicals” industry, but how does it contrast to its rivals? We will compare Cabot to related companies based on the strength of its analyst recommendations, risk, institutional ownership, valuation, earnings, dividends and profitability.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and recommmendations for Cabot and its rivals, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Cabot	1	4	2	0	2.14
Cabot Competitors	3237	12176	14100	515	2.40

Cabot presently has a consensus price target of $87.80, suggesting a potential upside of 16.07%. As a group, “Chemicals” companies have a potential upside of 6.15%. Given Cabot’s higher possible upside, research analysts clearly believe Cabot is more favorable than its rivals.

Volatility & Risk

Cabot has a beta of 0.83, indicating that its share price is 17% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Cabot’s rivals have a beta of 1.26, indicating that their average share price is 26% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

93.2% of Cabot shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 48.0% of shares of all “Chemicals” companies are held by institutional investors. 3.1% of Cabot shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 14.1% of shares of all “Chemicals” companies are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Dividends

Cabot pays an annual dividend of $1.89 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.5%. Cabot pays out 53.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. As a group, “Chemicals” companies pay a dividend yield of 3.1% and pay out 107.7% of their earnings in the form of a dividend. Cabot has raised its dividend for 14 consecutive years.

Profitability

This table compares Cabot and its rivals’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Cabot	5.23%	20.29%	9.01%
Cabot Competitors	-61.06%	1.32%	-1.40%

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Cabot and its rivals gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Cabot	$3.63 billion	$331.00 million	21.31
Cabot Competitors	$7.96 billion	$222.31 million	-3.71

Cabot’s rivals have higher revenue, but lower earnings than Cabot. Cabot is trading at a higher price-to-earnings ratio than its rivals, indicating that it is currently more expensive than other companies in its industry.

Summary

Cabot beats its rivals on 8 of the 15 factors compared.

About Cabot

Cabot Corporation operates as a specialty chemicals and performance materials company. The company operates through two segments, Reinforcement Materials and Performance Chemicals. It offers reinforcing carbons that are used in tires as a rubber reinforcing agent and performance additive, as well as in industrial products, such as hoses, belts, extruded profiles, and molded goods; and engineered elastomer composites solutions. The company also provides specialty carbons for use in inks, coatings, plastics, adhesives, toners, batteries, and displays; conductive additives and fumed alumina used in lead acid and lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles; fumed silica used in adhesives, sealants, cosmetics, batteries, inks, toners, silicone elastomers, coatings, polishing slurries, and pharmaceuticals; and fumed alumina for use in various products, including inkjet media, lighting, coatings, cosmetics, and polishing slurries. In addition, it offers aerogel, a hydrophobic, silica-based particle to use in various thermal insulation and specialty chemical applications; masterbatch and conductive compound products that are used in automotive, industrial, packaging, infrastructure, agriculture, consumer products, and electronics industries; and inkjet colorants for inkjet printing applications. The company sells its products through distributors and sales representatives in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific. Cabot Corporation was founded in 1882 and is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.