Comparing Blackstone (NYSE:BX) and Donnelley Financial Solutions (NYSE:DFIN)

Donnelley Financial Solutions (NYSE:DFIN) and Blackstone (NYSE:BX) are both finance companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, risk, earnings, institutional ownership, dividends, valuation and profitability.

Profitability

This table compares Donnelley Financial Solutions and Blackstone’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Donnelley Financial Solutions	12.37%	26.70%	12.70%
Blackstone	22.11%	23.16%	9.61%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations and price targets for Donnelley Financial Solutions and Blackstone, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Donnelley Financial Solutions	0	2	2	1	2.80
Blackstone	0	12	13	0	2.52

Donnelley Financial Solutions currently has a consensus target price of $67.00, suggesting a potential upside of 0.78%. Blackstone has a consensus target price of $144.57, suggesting a potential upside of 22.04%. Given Blackstone’s higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Blackstone is more favorable than Donnelley Financial Solutions.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

93.8% of Donnelley Financial Solutions shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 70.0% of Blackstone shares are held by institutional investors. 5.2% of Donnelley Financial Solutions shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.0% of Blackstone shares are held by company 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.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Donnelley Financial Solutions and Blackstone”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Donnelley Financial Solutions	$767.00 million	2.13	$32.40 million	$1.45	45.85
Blackstone	$14.45 billion	6.15	$3.02 billion	$4.50	26.32

Blackstone has higher revenue and earnings than Donnelley Financial Solutions. Blackstone is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Donnelley Financial Solutions, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Volatility and Risk

Donnelley Financial Solutions has a beta of 0.75, suggesting that its stock price is 25% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Blackstone has a beta of 1.59, suggesting that its stock price is 59% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Blackstone beats Donnelley Financial Solutions on 9 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Donnelley Financial Solutions

Donnelley Financial Solutions, Inc. provides innovative software and technology-enabled financial regulatory and compliance solutions in the United States, Asia, Europe, Canada, and internationally. It operates through four segments: Capital Markets Software Solutions (CM-SS); Capital Markets Compliance and Communications Management (CM-CCM); Investment Companies Software Solutions (IC-SS); and Investment Companies Compliance and Communications Management (IC-CCM). The CM-SS segment provides Venue and ActiveDisclosure solutions to public and private companies to manage public and private transactional and compliance processes; collaborate; and tag, validate, and file SEC documents. The CM-CCM segment offers tech-enabled services and print and distribution solutions to public and private companies for deal solutions and SEC compliance requirements. The IC-SS segment provides clients with the Arc Suite platform that contains a comprehensive suite of cloud-based solutions, including ArcDigital, ArcReporting, ArcPro, and ArcRegulatory, as well as services that enable storage and management of compliance and regulatory information in a self-service and central repository for accessing, assembling, editing, translating, rendering, and submitting documents to regulators and investors. The IC-CCM segment offers tech-enabled solutions for creating, filing and distributing regulatory communications, and solutions for investor communications, as well as XBRL and iXBRL-formatted filings pursuant for Investment Company Act through the SEC’s EDGAR system. This segment also provides turnkey proxy services, including discovery, planning and implementation, print and mail management, solicitation, tabulation services, stockholder meeting review, and expert support. Donnelley Financial Solutions, Inc. was founded in 1983 and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.

About Blackstone

Blackstone Inc. is an alternative asset management firm specializing in real estate, private equity, hedge fund solutions, credit, secondary funds of funds, public debt and equity and multi-asset class strategies. The firm typically invests in early-stage companies. It also provide capital markets services. The real estate segment specializes in opportunistic, core+ investments as well as debt investment opportunities collateralized by commercial real estate, and stabilized income-oriented commercial real estate across North America, Europe and Asia. The firm's corporate private equity business pursues transactions throughout the world across a variety of transaction types, including large buyouts,special situations, distressed mortgage loans, mid-cap buyouts, buy and build platforms, which involves multiple acquisitions behind a single management team and platform, and growth equity/development projects involving significant majority stakes in portfolio companies and minority investments in operating companies, shipping, real estate, corporate or consumer loans, and alternative energy greenfield development projects in energy and power, property, dislocated markets, shipping opportunities, financial institution breakups, re-insurance, and improving freight mobility, financial services, healthcare, life sciences, infrastructure, enterprise tech and consumer, as well as consumer technologies. The firm considers investment in Asia and Latin America. It seeks to invest between $0.25 million and $900 million per transaction. It invests in companies with enterprise value between $500 million and $5000 million. It has a three year investment period. Its hedge fund business manages a broad range of commingled and customized fund solutions and its credit business focuses on loans, and securities of non-investment grade companies spread across the capital structure including senior debt, subordinated debt, preferred stock and common equity. Blackstone Inc. was founded in 1985 and is headquartered in New York, New York with additional offices across Asia, Europe, North America and Central America.