Critical Survey: Talen Energy (TLN) versus The Competition

Talen Energy (NASDAQ:TLN) is one of 106 publicly-traded companies in the “Electric services” industry, but how does it compare to its peers? We will compare Talen Energy to related companies based on the strength of its institutional ownership, profitability, risk, valuation, analyst recommendations, earnings and dividends.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current recommendations for Talen Energy and its peers, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Talen Energy	0	0	9	0	3.00
Talen Energy Competitors	1080	4775	4630	94	2.35

Talen Energy presently has a consensus target price of $210.33, indicating a potential downside of 1.90%. As a group, “Electric services” companies have a potential upside of 1.00%. Given Talen Energy’s peers higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Talen Energy has less favorable growth aspects than its peers.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

0.4% of Talen Energy shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 58.0% of shares of all “Electric services” companies are held by institutional investors. 0.2% of Talen Energy shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 7.3% of shares of all “Electric services” companies 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 Talen Energy and its peers’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Talen Energy	50.48%	8.59%	3.13%
Talen Energy Competitors	0.96%	7.17%	1.30%

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Talen Energy and its peers top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Talen Energy	$2.55 billion	$613.00 million	11.48
Talen Energy Competitors	$1,260.42 billion	$583.49 million	4.93

Talen Energy’s peers have higher revenue, but lower earnings than Talen Energy. Talen Energy is trading at a higher price-to-earnings ratio than its peers, indicating that it is currently more expensive than other companies in its industry.

Summary

Talen Energy beats its peers on 7 of the 12 factors compared.

About Talen Energy

Talen Energy Corporation is a U.S.-based energy and power generation company. The Company owns or controls approximately 16,000 megawatts of capacity in wholesale power markets, principally in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and Southwest regions of the United States. The Company generates and sells electricity, capacity and related products from power plants that use fuel sources, such as nuclear, natural gas and coal. The Company’s Susquehanna nuclear power plant has approximately two boiling water reactors with a combined capacity of over 2,600 megawatts. Its fossil fuel plants are located in Athens, Barney Davis, Bayonne, Brandon Shores, Brunner Island, Camden, Colstrip and Dartmouth, among others. It has an art energy trading center located in Allentown, Pennsylvania (PA), where it manages asset load obligations, fuel supply, capacity and related products, and all supporting physical or financial transactions for its electric generation portfolio.