BJ’s Restaurants (NASDAQ:BJRI) and GreenTree Hospitality Group (NYSE:GHG) Head-To-Head Analysis

GreenTree Hospitality Group (NYSE:GHG) and BJ’s Restaurants (NASDAQ:BJRI) are both small-cap consumer discretionary companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, valuation, earnings, risk, dividends, profitability and analyst recommendations.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares GreenTree Hospitality Group and BJ’s Restaurants”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
GreenTree Hospitality Group	$156.92 million	0.60	$23.85 million	$0.05	18.72
BJ’s Restaurants	$1.40 billion	0.94	$48.81 million	$1.87	33.02

BJ’s Restaurants has higher revenue and earnings than GreenTree Hospitality Group. GreenTree Hospitality Group is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than BJ’s Restaurants, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

8.1% of GreenTree Hospitality Group shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 100.0% of BJ’s Restaurants shares are held by institutional investors. 88.7% of GreenTree Hospitality Group shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 2.4% of BJ’s Restaurants shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Volatility and Risk

GreenTree Hospitality Group has a beta of 0.65, meaning that its share price is 35% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, BJ’s Restaurants has a beta of 1.46, meaning that its share price is 46% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares GreenTree Hospitality Group and BJ’s Restaurants’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
GreenTree Hospitality Group	4.14%	2.49%	0.84%
BJ’s Restaurants	2.86%	12.93%	4.79%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings for GreenTree Hospitality Group and BJ’s Restaurants, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
GreenTree Hospitality Group	1	0	0	0	1.00
BJ’s Restaurants	1	4	4	0	2.33

BJ’s Restaurants has a consensus target price of $62.00, suggesting a potential upside of 0.40%. Given BJ’s Restaurants’ stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe BJ’s Restaurants is more favorable than GreenTree Hospitality Group.

Summary

BJ’s Restaurants beats GreenTree Hospitality Group on 12 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About GreenTree Hospitality Group

GreenTree Hospitality Group Ltd., through its subsidiaries, develops leased-and-operated, and franchised-and-managed hotels under the GreenTree Inns brand in the People's Republic of China. It also engages in investment holding activities; and provision of information technology services. The company was founded in 2004 and is headquartered in Shanghai, the People's Republic of China.

About BJ’s Restaurants

BJ’s Restaurants, Inc. owns and operates casual dining restaurants in the United States. Its restaurants offer pizzas, craft and other beers, appetizers, entrées, pastas, sandwiches, specialty salads, and desserts under brand name Pizookie. The company was formerly known as Chicago Pizza & Brewery, Inc. and changed its name to BJ’s Restaurants, Inc. in August 2004. BJ’s Restaurants, Inc. was founded in 1978 and is based in Huntington Beach, California.