Comparing Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) & Legal & General Group (OTCMKTS:LGGNY)

Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) and Legal & General Group (OTCMKTS:LGGNY) are both finance companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, dividends, earnings, risk, valuation, analyst recommendations and institutional ownership.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and price targets for Assured Guaranty and Legal & General Group, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Assured Guaranty	0	2	2	0	2.50
Legal & General Group	1	3	0	0	1.75

Assured Guaranty presently has a consensus price target of $98.50, indicating a potential upside of 22.85%. Given Assured Guaranty’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Assured Guaranty is more favorable than Legal & General Group.

Profitability

This table compares Assured Guaranty and Legal & General Group’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Assured Guaranty	44.53%	7.18%	3.38%
Legal & General Group	N/A	N/A	N/A

Dividends

Assured Guaranty pays an annual dividend of $1.36 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.7%. Legal & General Group pays an annual dividend of $0.77 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.8%. Assured Guaranty pays out 15.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Assured Guaranty has increased its dividend for 7 consecutive years.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Assured Guaranty and Legal & General Group”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Assured Guaranty	$872.00 million	4.38	$376.00 million	$9.05	8.86
Legal & General Group	$13.51 billion	1.34	$244.08 million	N/A	N/A

Assured Guaranty has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Legal & General Group.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

92.2% of Assured Guaranty shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 0.0% of Legal & General Group shares are owned by institutional investors. 5.1% of Assured Guaranty shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Risk & Volatility

Assured Guaranty has a beta of 0.92, indicating that its stock price is 8% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Legal & General Group has a beta of 1.17, indicating that its stock price is 17% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Assured Guaranty beats Legal & General Group on 11 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Assured Guaranty

Assured Guaranty Ltd., together with its subsidiaries, provides credit protection products to public finance, infrastructure, and structured finance markets in the United States and internationally. It operates through two segments: Insurance and Asset Management. The company offers financial guaranty insurance that protects holders of debt instruments and other monetary obligations from defaults in scheduled payments. It insures and reinsures various debt obligations, including bonds issued by the United States state governmental authorities; and notes issued to finance infrastructure projects. In addition, the company insures and reinsures various the U.S. public finance obligations, such as general obligation, tax-backed, municipal utility, transportation, healthcare, higher education, infrastructure, housing revenue, investor-owned utility, renewable energy, and other public finance bonds. Further, the company involved in insuring and reinsuring of non-U.S. public finance obligations comprising regulated utilities, infrastructure finance, sovereign and sub-sovereign, renewable energy bonds, pooled infrastructure, and other public finance obligations; and the U.S. and non-U.S. Structured finance obligations, including residential mortgage-backed securities, life insurance transactions, consumer receivables securities, subscription finance facilities, pooled corporate obligations, and financial products. Additionally, it offers specialty business, such as real estate properties, insurance securitizations, and aircraft residual value insurance (RVI) transactions; and asset management services comprising investment advisory services. It markets its financial guaranty insurance directly to issuers and underwriters of public finance and structured finance securities, as well as to investors in such obligations. Assured Guaranty Ltd. was incorporated in 2003 and is headquartered in Hamilton, Bermuda.

About Legal & General Group

Legal & General Group Plc provides various insurance products and services in the United Kingdom, the United States, and internationally. It operates in Legal & General Retirement Institutional (LGRI), Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM), Legal & General Capital (LGC), and Retail segments. The LGRI segment offers annuity contracts with guaranteed income for a specified time; and longevity insurance products. The LGIM segment offers index fund management; active fixed income funds and liquidity funds; active equity management; solution and liability driven investment; multi-asset funds; corporate pension scheme solutions; and real assets. The LGC segment provides investment strategy and implementation, and direct investment and structuring services. The Retail segment offers protection products, such as health, disability, critical illness, and accident; individual term assurance; reinsurance; savings and death benefits; annuities; lifetime mortgages; lifetime care plans; retirement interest only mortgages; and workplace savings scheme that provides corporate pension scheme solutions. It is also involved in the unit trust and institutional fund management, mortgage finance, treasury, building project and modular housing development, general insurance, and open-ended investment businesses. In addition, the company engages in the investment, operation, management, trading, and letting and operation of leased real estate; and construction of commercial buildings, financial intermediation, pension tracing and transfer, insurance agents and brokers, fund general partner, commercial lending, venture capital investing, contractual scheme, investor alternative investment fund, collective asset-management, and investment management activities; and provision of investment advisory, business information consultancy, and technology services. Legal & General Group Plc was founded in 1836 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom.