KAR vs. UNF, MGRC, HCSG, CTAS, CPRT, IRM, LAD, MUSA, AN, and GPI
Should you be buying OPENLANE stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of OPENLANE include UniFirst (UNF), McGrath RentCorp (MGRC), Healthcare Services Group (HCSG), Cintas (CTAS), Copart (CPRT), Iron Mountain (IRM), Lithia Motors (LAD), Murphy USA (MUSA), AutoNation (AN), and Group 1 Automotive (GPI).
OPENLANE vs. Its Competitors
UniFirst (NYSE:UNF) and OPENLANE (NYSE:KAR) are both mid-cap industrials companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, profitability, media sentiment, dividends, valuation, community ranking, analyst recommendations, risk and earnings.
OPENLANE has a net margin of 6.27% compared to UniFirst's net margin of 6.00%. OPENLANE's return on equity of 9.20% beat UniFirst's return on equity.
UniFirst currently has a consensus price target of $180.00, suggesting a potential downside of 2.34%. OPENLANE has a consensus price target of $23.67, suggesting a potential upside of 3.59%. Given OPENLANE's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe OPENLANE is more favorable than UniFirst.
UniFirst pays an annual dividend of $1.40 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.8%. OPENLANE pays an annual dividend of $0.76 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.3%. UniFirst pays out 17.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. OPENLANE pays out 115.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. UniFirst has raised its dividend for 7 consecutive years.
UniFirst has a beta of 0.87, meaning that its stock price is 13% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, OPENLANE has a beta of 1.4, meaning that its stock price is 40% more volatile than the S&P 500.
In the previous week, OPENLANE had 3 more articles in the media than UniFirst. MarketBeat recorded 7 mentions for OPENLANE and 4 mentions for UniFirst. UniFirst's average media sentiment score of 1.77 beat OPENLANE's score of 0.59 indicating that UniFirst is being referred to more favorably in the media.
UniFirst has higher revenue and earnings than OPENLANE. UniFirst is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than OPENLANE, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
78.2% of UniFirst shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 99.8% of OPENLANE shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.9% of UniFirst shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 1.5% of OPENLANE shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
OPENLANE received 416 more outperform votes than UniFirst when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 70.90% of users gave OPENLANE an outperform vote while only 52.55% of users gave UniFirst an outperform vote.
Summary
OPENLANE beats UniFirst on 13 of the 21 factors compared between the two stocks.
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New MarketBeat Followers Over Time
This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding KAR and its top 5 competitors to their watchlist. Each company is represented with a line over a 90 day period.
Media Sentiment Over Time
This chart shows the average media sentiment of NYSE and its competitors over the past 90 days as caculated by MarketBeat. The averaged score is equivalent to the following: Very Negative Sentiment <= -1.5, Negative Sentiment > -1.5 and <= -0.5, Neutral Sentiment > -0.5 and < 0.5, Positive Sentiment >= 0.5 and < 1.5, and Very Positive Sentiment >= 1.5.
OPENLANE Competitors List
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This page (NYSE:KAR) was last updated on 6/13/2025 by MarketBeat.com Staff
