Gildan Activewear (NYSE:GIL) and Amer Sports (NYSE:AS) Critical Comparison

Gildan Activewear (NYSE:GIL) and Amer Sports (NYSE:AS) are both mid-cap consumer discretionary companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their valuation, analyst recommendations, earnings, risk, institutional ownership, profitability and dividends.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings and recommmendations for Gildan Activewear and Amer Sports, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Gildan Activewear	0	4	8	0	2.67
Amer Sports	0	2	12	0	2.86

Gildan Activewear presently has a consensus target price of $41.05, suggesting a potential upside of 10.56%. Amer Sports has a consensus target price of $19.18, suggesting a potential upside of 17.66%. Given Amer Sports’ stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Amer Sports is more favorable than Gildan Activewear.

Profitability

This table compares Gildan Activewear and Amer Sports’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Gildan Activewear	16.70%	23.19%	12.58%
Amer Sports	N/A	N/A	N/A

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Gildan Activewear and Amer Sports’ revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Gildan Activewear	$3.20 billion	1.96	$533.58 million	$3.03	12.25
Amer Sports	$4.37 billion	1.89	N/A	N/A	N/A

Gildan Activewear has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Amer Sports.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

82.8% of Gildan Activewear shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 40.3% of Amer Sports shares are held by institutional investors. 2.0% of Gildan Activewear shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Gildan Activewear beats Amer Sports on 6 of the 10 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Gildan Activewear

Gildan Activewear Inc. manufactures and sells various apparel products in the United States, North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America. It provides various activewear products, including T-shirts, fleece tops and bottoms, and sports shirts under the Gildan, Gildan Performance, Gildan Hammer, Glidan Softstyle, Gildan Heavy Cotton, Gildan Ultra Cotton, Gildan DryBlend, Gildan HeavyBlend, Comfort Colors, and American Apparel brands. The company also offers hosiery products comprising athletic; dress; and casual, liner, therapeutic, and workwear socks under the Gildan, Under Armour, GoldToe, Signature Gold by Goldtoe, Peds, MediPeds, All Pro, and GoldTeo Edition TM brands. In addition, it provides men's and boys' underwear products, and ladies panties under the Gildan and Gildan Platinum brands. The company sells its products to wholesale distributors, screen printers, and embellishers, as well as to retailers and lifestyle brand companies. The company was formerly known as Textiles Gildan Inc. and changed its name to Gildan Activewear Inc. in March 1995. Gildan Activewear Inc. was founded in 1946 and is headquartered in Montreal, Canada.

About Amer Sports

Amer Sports, Inc. designs, manufactures, markets, distributes, and sells sports equipment, apparel, footwear, and accessories in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Americas, China, and the Asia Pacific. The company operates through three segments: Technical Apparel, Outdoor Performance, and Ball & Racquet Sports. The Technical Apparel segment offers outdoor apparel, footwear, and accessories under the Arc'teryx and Peak Performance brands. The Outdoor Performance segment provides outdoor apparel, footwear, accessories, and winter sports equipment under the Salomon, Atomic, Armada, and ENVE brands. The Ball & Racquet Sports segment offers sports equipment, apparel, and accessories under the Wilson, DeMarini, Louisville Slugger, EvoShield, and ATEC brands. The company also provides climbing gears, hiking and running footwear, skiing and snowboarding gears, functional athletic apparel, and lifestyle footwear, as well as sporting equipment for tennis, baseball, American football, basketball, golf, and various other professional and recreational sports. It sells its products through its retail stores, general sporting goods retailers, specialty stores, independently operated partner stores, and distributors, as well as its e-commerce websites, and retailer-owned and third-party e-commerce websites. The company was formerly known as Amer Sports Management Holding (Cayman) Limited and changed its name to Amer Sports, Inc. in August 2023. Amer Sports, Inc. was founded in 1950 and is based in Helsinki, Finland.