Thermo Fisher Scientific (NYSE:TMO) vs. Sysmex (OTCMKTS:SSMXY) Critical Analysis

Thermo Fisher Scientific (NYSE:TMO) and Sysmex (OTCMKTS:SSMXY) are both medical companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, risk, profitability, institutional ownership, earnings, dividends and analyst recommendations.

Profitability

This table compares Thermo Fisher Scientific and Sysmex’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Thermo Fisher Scientific	15.05%	16.92%	8.36%
Sysmex	8.86%	9.27%	6.63%

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Thermo Fisher Scientific and Sysmex”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Thermo Fisher Scientific	$44.56 billion	4.39	$6.70 billion	$17.74	29.65
Sysmex	$3.34 billion	1.72	$357.79 million	$0.48	18.98

Thermo Fisher Scientific has higher revenue and earnings than Sysmex. Sysmex is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Thermo Fisher Scientific, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Dividends

Thermo Fisher Scientific pays an annual dividend of $1.88 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.4%. Sysmex pays an annual dividend of $0.14 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.5%. Thermo Fisher Scientific pays out 10.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Sysmex pays out 29.2% 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. Thermo Fisher Scientific has raised its dividend for 8 consecutive years.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

89.2% of Thermo Fisher Scientific shares are held by institutional investors. 0.3% of Thermo Fisher Scientific shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and recommmendations for Thermo Fisher Scientific and Sysmex, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Thermo Fisher Scientific	0	2	19	1	2.95
Sysmex	0	2	1	0	2.33

Thermo Fisher Scientific currently has a consensus target price of $631.25, indicating a potential upside of 20.00%. Given Thermo Fisher Scientific’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, research analysts plainly believe Thermo Fisher Scientific is more favorable than Sysmex.

Risk and Volatility

Thermo Fisher Scientific has a beta of 0.97, indicating that its share price is 3% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Sysmex has a beta of 1.13, indicating that its share price is 13% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Thermo Fisher Scientific beats Sysmex on 16 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Thermo Fisher Scientific

Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. provides life sciences solutions, analytical instruments, specialty diagnostics, and laboratory products and biopharma services in the North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and internationally. The company's Life Sciences Solutions segment offers reagents, instruments, and consumables for biological and medical research, discovery, and production of drugs and vaccines, as well as diagnosis of infections and diseases; and solutions include biosciences, genetic sciences, and bio production to pharmaceutical, biotechnology, agricultural, clinical, healthcare, academic, and government markets. Its Analytical Instruments segment provides instruments, consumables, software, and services for pharmaceutical, biotechnology, academic, government, environmental, and other research and industrial markets, as well as clinical laboratories. The company's Specialty Diagnostics segment offers liquid, ready-to-use, and lyophilized immunodiagnostic reagent kits, as well as calibrators, controls, protein detection assays, and instruments; immunodiagnostics develops, manufactures and markets complete bloodtest systems to support the clinical diagnosis and monitoring of allergy, asthma and autoimmune diseases; dehydrated and prepared culture media, collection and transport systems, instrumentation, and consumables; human leukocyte antigen typing and testing for organ transplant market; and healthcare products. Its Laboratory Products and Biopharma Services segment provides laboratory products, research and safety market channel, and pharma services and clinical research. It offers products and services through a direct sales force, customer-service professionals, electronic commerce, and third-party distributors under Thermo Scientific; Applied Biosystems; Invitrogen; Fisher Scientific; Unity Lab Services; and Patheon and PPD. Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. was founded in 1956 and is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts.

About Sysmex

Sysmex Corporation engages in the development, manufacture, and sale of diagnostic instruments, reagents, and related software in Japan. It offers three-part and five-part white blood cell differentiation instruments for use in hematology; and transport systems for high-volume testing in labs. The company also provides automated urine particle analyzers; automated blood coagulation analyzers; automated immunochemistry systems, which perform assays on minute sample quantities, as well as reagents to test for infectious disease and tumor markers; and flow cytometers to perform analysis in diagnosing leukemia, malignant lymphoma, and HIV/AIDS. In addition, it offers cancer lymph node metastasis testing systems to detect information to help in diagnosing lymph node metastasis; and lab assay services. Further, the company is involved in the development and sale of software for diagnostic information systems; provision of facility management, office, welfare, and genetic analysis services; development, operation, and maintenance of IT solutions, platforms, and applications related to digital medicine; marketing, development, design, manufacture, sale, and after-sales service related to medical robots; and distribution and after sales support of medical devices and reagents for biotechnology, medical technology, and molecular cell analysis. Additionally, it researches, develops, manufactures, and sells regenerative medicine products; develops, manufactures, and sells biodevices; develops, maintains, and sells computer software; and offers blood DNA testing service. The company serves national and other public hospitals, private hospitals, universities, research institutes, other medical institutions, etc. It also exports its products to approximately 190 countries. The company was formerly known as TOA Medical Electronics Co., Ltd. and changed its name to Sysmex Corporation in October 1998. Sysmex Corporation was founded in 1968 and is headquartered in Kobe, Japan.