Financial Comparison: Equifax (NYSE:EFX) vs. CBIZ (NYSE:CBZ)

CBIZ (NYSE:CBZ) and Equifax (NYSE:EFX) are both business services companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, earnings, profitability, dividends and valuation.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings and recommmendations for CBIZ and Equifax, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
CBIZ	0	0	2	0	3.00
Equifax	0	5	13	1	2.79

CBIZ currently has a consensus price target of $86.00, suggesting a potential upside of 27.90%. Equifax has a consensus price target of $294.63, suggesting a potential upside of 15.40%. Given CBIZ’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities analysts clearly believe CBIZ is more favorable than Equifax.

Volatility & Risk

CBIZ has a beta of 0.93, suggesting that its share price is 7% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Equifax has a beta of 1.63, suggesting that its share price is 63% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares CBIZ and Equifax”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
CBIZ	$1.81 billion	2.02	$41.04 million	$1.47	45.74
Equifax	$5.68 billion	5.58	$604.10 million	$4.89	52.21

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

Insider and Institutional Ownership

87.4% of CBIZ shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 96.2% of Equifax shares are held by institutional investors. 5.0% of CBIZ shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 1.4% of Equifax 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.

Profitability

This table compares CBIZ and Equifax’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
CBIZ	4.03%	14.83%	6.12%
Equifax	10.68%	18.81%	7.60%

Summary

Equifax beats CBIZ on 12 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About CBIZ

CBIZ, Inc. provides financial, insurance, and advisory services in the United States and Canada. It operates through Financial Services, Benefits and Insurance Services, and National Practices segments. The Financial Services segment offers accounting and tax, financial advisory, valuation, risk and advisory, and government healthcare consulting services. The Benefits and Insurance Services provides employee benefits consulting, payroll/human capital management, property and casualty insurance, and retirement and investment services. The National Practices segment offers information technology managed networking and hardware, and health care consulting services. The company primarily serves small and medium-sized businesses, as well as individuals, governmental entities, and not-for-profit enterprises. CBIZ, Inc. was incorporated in 1987 and is headquartered in Independence, Ohio.

About Equifax

Equifax Inc. operates as a data, analytics, and technology company. The company operates through three segments: Workforce Solutions, U.S. Information Solutions (USIS), and International. The Workforce Solutions segment offers services that enables customers to verify income, employment, educational history, criminal justice data, healthcare professional licensure, and sanctions of people in the United States; and employer customers with services that assist them in complying with and automating payroll-related and human resource management processes throughout the entire cycle of the employment relationship. The USIS segment provides consumer and commercial information services, such as credit information and credit scoring, credit modeling and portfolio analytics, locate, fraud detection and prevention, identity verification, and other consulting services; mortgage services; financial marketing services; identity management services; and credit monitoring products. The International segment offers information service products, which include consumer and commercial services, such as credit and financial information, and credit scoring and modeling; and credit and other marketing products and services, as well as offers information, technology, and other services to support debt collections and recovery management. The company serves customers in financial services, mortgage, retail, telecommunications, utilities, automotive, brokerage, healthcare, and insurance industries, as well as government agencies. It operates in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, India, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom, Uruguay, and the United States. The company was founded in 1899 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.