BATS vs. IMB, ULVR, DGE, RKT, CCEP, TSCO, ABF, BNZL, CCH, and SBRY
Should you be buying British American Tobacco stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of British American Tobacco include Imperial Brands (IMB), Unilever (ULVR), Diageo (DGE), Reckitt Benckiser Group (RKT), Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP), Tesco (TSCO), Associated British Foods (ABF), Bunzl (BNZL), Coca-Cola HBC (CCH), and J Sainsbury (SBRY). These companies are all part of the "consumer defensive" sector.
British American Tobacco vs.
British American Tobacco (LON:BATS) and Imperial Brands (LON:IMB) are both large-cap consumer defensive companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, analyst recommendations, community ranking, institutional ownership, media sentiment, risk, valuation, earnings and dividends.
British American Tobacco has a beta of 0.27, indicating that its share price is 73% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Imperial Brands has a beta of 0.42, indicating that its share price is 58% less volatile than the S&P 500.
British American Tobacco pays an annual dividend of GBX 236 per share and has a dividend yield of 7.5%. Imperial Brands pays an annual dividend of GBX 153 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.7%. British American Tobacco pays out -3,794.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Imperial Brands pays out 6,652.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. British American Tobacco is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.
British American Tobacco currently has a consensus price target of GBX 3,183.33, indicating a potential upside of 0.71%. Imperial Brands has a consensus price target of GBX 2,205, indicating a potential downside of 17.26%. Given British American Tobacco's stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe British American Tobacco is more favorable than Imperial Brands.
Imperial Brands has a net margin of 11.44% compared to British American Tobacco's net margin of -52.84%. Imperial Brands' return on equity of 39.00% beat British American Tobacco's return on equity.
40.7% of British American Tobacco shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 68.0% of Imperial Brands shares are held by institutional investors. 10.6% of British American Tobacco shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 7.3% of Imperial Brands shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
British American Tobacco received 597 more outperform votes than Imperial Brands when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 74.01% of users gave British American Tobacco an outperform vote while only 69.56% of users gave Imperial Brands an outperform vote.
In the previous week, British American Tobacco had 5 more articles in the media than Imperial Brands. MarketBeat recorded 6 mentions for British American Tobacco and 1 mentions for Imperial Brands. British American Tobacco's average media sentiment score of 0.34 beat Imperial Brands' score of 0.21 indicating that British American Tobacco is being referred to more favorably in the media.
Imperial Brands has lower revenue, but higher earnings than British American Tobacco. British American Tobacco is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Imperial Brands, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Summary
British American Tobacco beats Imperial Brands on 12 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This page (LON:BATS) was last updated on 1/29/2025 by MarketBeat.com Staff