Financial Comparison: Children’s Place (PLCE) and Its Peers

Children’s Place (NASDAQ:PLCE) is one of 285 public companies in the “Specialty Retail” industry, but how does it compare to its competitors? We will compare Children’s Place to similar companies based on the strength of its risk, dividends, profitability, institutional ownership, valuation, earnings and analyst recommendations.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings and price targets for Children’s Place and its competitors, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Children’s Place	1	2	0	0	1.67
Children’s Place Competitors	3674	15593	21618	590	2.46

Children’s Place presently has a consensus price target of $3.25, suggesting a potential upside of 909.32%. As a group, “Specialty Retail” companies have a potential upside of 7.36%. Given Children’s Place’s higher possible upside, research analysts clearly believe Children’s Place is more favorable than its competitors.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

51.9% of shares of all “Specialty Retail” companies are held by institutional investors. 0.9% of Children’s Place shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 20.5% of shares of all “Specialty Retail” companies are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares Children’s Place and its competitors’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Children’s Place	-11.82%	N/A	-14.84%
Children’s Place Competitors	-3.69%	-13.95%	3.18%

Risk and Volatility

Children’s Place has a beta of 2.1, indicating that its stock price is 110% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Children’s Place’s competitors have a beta of 1.91, indicating that their average stock price is 91% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Children’s Place and its competitors gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Children’s Place	$1.21 billion	-$88.26 million	-0.05
Children’s Place Competitors	$7.05 billion	$386.47 million	32.98

Children’s Place’s competitors have higher revenue and earnings than Children’s Place. Children’s Place is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than its competitors, indicating that it is currently more affordable than other companies in its industry.

Summary

Children’s Place competitors beat Children’s Place on 10 of the 13 factors compared.

Children’s Place Company Profile

The Children’s Place, Inc. engages in the provision of apparel, footwear, accessories, and other items for children. The firm also designs contracts to manufacture and sell fashionable and value-priced merchandise under the brand names of The Children’s Place, Baby Place, and Gymboree. It operates through The Children’s Place U.S. and The Children’s Place International segments. The Children’s Place U.S. segment refers to the company’s U.S. and Puerto Rico-based stores and revenue from its U.S. based wholesale business. The Children’s Place International segment is involved in the Canadian-based stores, revenue from the company’s Canadian-based wholesale business, as well as revenue from international franchisees. The company was founded by David Pulver and Clinton A. Clark in 1969 and is headquartered in Secaucus, NJ.