Head to Head Review: OLO (NYSE:OLO) vs. Western Union (NYSE:WU)

OLO (NYSE:OLO) and Western Union (NYSE:WU) are both computer and technology companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, dividends, profitability, earnings, analyst recommendations, valuation and institutional ownership.

Volatility and Risk

OLO has a beta of 1.42, indicating that its share price is 42% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Western Union has a beta of 0.85, indicating that its share price is 15% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares OLO and Western Union”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
OLO	$271.87 million	4.59	-$58.29 million	($0.10)	-76.30
Western Union	$4.20 billion	0.84	$626.00 million	$1.95	5.35

Western Union has higher revenue and earnings than OLO. OLO is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Western Union, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares OLO and Western Union’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
OLO	-5.89%	0.34%	0.30%
Western Union	16.07%	120.39%	7.44%

Insider & Institutional Ownership

93.4% of OLO shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 91.8% of Western Union shares are held by institutional investors. 39.3% of OLO shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.9% of Western Union shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings and recommmendations for OLO and Western Union, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
OLO	0	1	2	0	2.67
Western Union	2	8	0	0	1.80

OLO presently has a consensus price target of $8.67, suggesting a potential upside of 13.59%. Western Union has a consensus price target of $12.63, suggesting a potential upside of 20.93%. Given Western Union’s higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Western Union is more favorable than OLO.

Summary

Western Union beats OLO on 8 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About OLO

Olo Inc. operates an open SaaS platform for restaurants in the United States. The company’s platform enables on-demand digital commerce operations, which cover digital ordering, delivery, front-of-house management, and payments. Its solutions include Order, a suite of solutions powering restaurant brands’ on-demand commerce operations, enabling digital ordering, delivery, and channel management through ordering, dispatch, rails, switchboard, network, virtual brands, kiosk, catering, and sync modules; Engage, a suite of restaurant-centric marketing solutions optimizing guest lifetime value by strengthening and enhancing the restaurants’ direct guest relationships, through the guest data platform, marketing, sentiment, and host modules; and Pay, a frictionless payment platform that enables restaurants to grow and protect their digital business through customer payment experience that offers advanced fraud prevention to improve authorization rates for valid transactions, and increase basket conversion through its Olo Pay module. The company was formerly known as Mobo Systems, Inc. and changed its name to Olo Inc. in January 2020. Olo Inc. was incorporated in 2005 and is headquartered in New York, New York.

About Western Union

The Western Union Company provides money movement and payment services worldwide. The company operates through Consumer Money Transfer and Consumer Services segments. The Consumer Money Transfer segment facilitates money transfers for international cross-border and intra-country transfers, primarily through a network of retail agent locations, as well as through websites and mobile devices. The Consumer Services segments offers bill payment services, which facilitate payments for consumers, businesses, and other organizations, as well as money order services, retail foreign exchange services, prepaid cards, lending partnerships, and digital wallets. The company was founded in 1851 and is headquartered in Denver, Colorado.