Comparing Booking (NASDAQ:BKNG) and BW LPG (NYSE:BWLP)

Booking (NASDAQ:BKNG) and BW LPG (NYSE:BWLP) are both retail/wholesale companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, risk, analyst recommendations, profitability, earnings, institutional ownership and valuation.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and target prices for Booking and BW LPG, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Booking	0	9	20	2	2.77
BW LPG	0	0	1	0	3.00

Booking currently has a consensus price target of $5,370.43, indicating a potential upside of 6.67%. Given Booking’s higher possible upside, research analysts clearly believe Booking is more favorable than BW LPG.

Profitability

This table compares Booking and BW LPG’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Booking	24.78%	-159.34%	22.77%
BW LPG	N/A	N/A	N/A

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Booking and BW LPG”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Booking	$23.74 billion	6.96	$5.88 billion	$173.04	29.09
BW LPG	$3.60 billion	0.42	N/A	N/A	N/A

Booking has higher revenue and earnings than BW LPG.

Dividends

Booking pays an annual dividend of $38.40 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.8%. BW LPG pays an annual dividend of $1.68 per share and has a dividend yield of 14.5%. Booking pays out 22.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

92.4% of Booking shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.1% of Booking shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Booking beats BW LPG on 9 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Booking

Booking Holdings Inc, formerly The Priceline Group Inc., is a provider of travel and restaurant online reservation and related services. The Company, through its online travel companies (OTCs), connects consumers wishing to make travel reservations with providers of travel services across the world. It offers consumers an array of accommodation reservations (including hotels, bed and breakfasts, hostels, apartments, vacation rentals and other properties) through its Booking.com, priceline.com and agoda.com brands. Its other brands include KAYAK, Rentalcars.com and OpenTable, Inc. (OpenTable). As of December 31, 2016, Booking.com offered accommodation reservation services for over 1,115,000 properties in over 220 countries and territories on its various Websites and in over 40 languages, which included over 568,000 vacation rental properties (updated property counts were available on the Booking.com Website).

About BW LPG

BW LPG Limited, an investment holding company, engages in ship owning and chartering activities worldwide. The company operates through Shipping and Product Services segments. The company involved in the transportation of liquefied petroleum gas to oil companies, and trading and utility companies. It also offers integrated liquified petroleum gas (LPG) delivery services and support; wholesale and trade of LPG; and management services. It owns and operates LPG vessels and a fleet of very large gas carriers. The company was formerly known as BW Gas LPG Holding Limited and changed its name to BW LPG Limited in September 2013. BW LPG Limited was founded in 1935 and is headquartered in Singapore.