Portillo's (NASDAQ:PTLO – Get Rating) and Main Street Capital (NYSE:MAIN – Get Rating) are both retail/wholesale companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, dividends, profitability, earnings, risk and valuation.
Valuation & Earnings
This table compares Portillo's and Main Street Capital's top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.
Get Portillo's alerts:| Gross Revenue | Price/Sales Ratio | Net Income | Earnings Per Share | Price/Earnings Ratio | |
| Portillo's | $534.95 million | 1.41 | $5.99 million | ($0.38) | -55.34 |
| Main Street Capital | $289.05 million | 9.20 | $330.76 million | $3.67 | 9.92 |
Main Street Capital has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Portillo's. Portillo's is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Main Street Capital, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Analyst Recommendations
This is a breakdown of current ratings and recommmendations for Portillo's and Main Street Capital, as provided by MarketBeat.com.| Sell Ratings | Hold Ratings | Buy Ratings | Strong Buy Ratings | Rating Score | |
| Portillo's | 0 | 4 | 6 | 0 | 2.60 |
| Main Street Capital | 0 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 2.20 |
Portillo's presently has a consensus price target of $44.11, suggesting a potential upside of 109.75%. Main Street Capital has a consensus price target of $42.80, suggesting a potential upside of 17.52%. Given Portillo's' stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Portillo's is more favorable than Main Street Capital.
Institutional & Insider Ownership
73.7% of Portillo's shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 19.1% of Main Street Capital shares are held by institutional investors. 5.3% of Portillo's shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 4.6% of Main Street Capital shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.
Profitability
This table compares Portillo's and Main Street Capital's net margins, return on equity and return on assets.
| Net Margins | Return on Equity | Return on Assets | |
| Portillo's | -1.21% | -1.88% | -0.69% |
| Main Street Capital | 79.82% | 11.67% | 5.79% |
Summary
Main Street Capital beats Portillo's on 7 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.
About Portillo's
(Get Rating)
Portillo's Inc. owns and operates fast casual and quick service restaurants in the United States. The company offers Chicago-style hot dogs and sausages, Italian beef sandwiches, burgers, chopped salads, crinkle-cut French fries, homemade chocolate cakes, and milkshakes. As of June 26, 2022, it owned and operated 71 Portillo's restaurants across nine states. The company also offers its products through its website. Portillo's Inc. was founded in 1963 and is based in Oak Brook, Illinois.
About Main Street Capital
(Get Rating)
Main Street Capital Corporation is a business development company specializes in equity capital to lower middle market companies. The firm specializing in recapitalizations, management buyouts, refinancing, family estate planning, management buyouts, refinancing, industry consolidation, mature, later stage emerging growth. The firm also provides debt capital to middle market companies for acquisitions, management buyouts, growth financings, recapitalizations and refinancing. The firm seeks to partner with entrepreneurs, business owners and management teams and generally provides "one stop" financing alternatives within its lower middle market portfolio. It prefers to invest in air freight and logistics, auto components, building products, chemicals, commercial services, computers, construction and engineering, consumer finance, consumer services, electronic equipment, energy equipment and services, financial services, health care equipment, health care providers, hotels, restaurants, and leisure, internet software and services, IT Services, machinery, oil, gas and consumable fuels, paper and forest products, professional and industrial services, road and rail, software, specialty retail, telecommunication, consumer discretionary, energy, materials, technology, and transportation. The firm typically invests in lower middle market companies generally with annual revenues between $5 million and $300 million. It prefers to invest in ranging between $2 million and $75 million in equity investment and enterprise value in ranging between $3 million and $20 million. The firm typically prefers to invest in the range of $5 million and $50 million per transaction in debt investment value and in the range of $1 million and $20 million in annual EBITDA. The firm's middle market debt investments are made in businesses that are generally larger in size than its lower middle market portfolio companies. It takes 5 percent minority and up to 50 percent majority equity investments. Main Street Capital Corporation was founded in 2007 and is based in Houston, Texas with an additional office in Chojnów, Poland.
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