Reviewing Bright Horizons Family Solutions (NYSE:BFAM) & comScore (NASDAQ:SCOR)

Bright Horizons Family Solutions (NYSE:BFAM) and comScore (NASDAQ:SCOR) are both business services companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their risk, institutional ownership, valuation, profitability, dividends, earnings and analyst recommendations.

Profitability

This table compares Bright Horizons Family Solutions and comScore’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Bright Horizons Family Solutions	6.34%	15.12%	5.27%
comScore	-19.80%	-1,124.27%	-14.92%

Insider and Institutional Ownership

42.2% of comScore shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.2% of Bright Horizons Family Solutions shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 11.1% of comScore 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.

Risk and Volatility

Bright Horizons Family Solutions has a beta of 1.33, meaning that its share price is 33% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, comScore has a beta of 1.2, meaning that its share price is 20% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Bright Horizons Family Solutions and comScore”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Bright Horizons Family Solutions	$2.69 billion	2.14	$140.19 million	$3.05	33.11
comScore	$356.05 million	0.10	-$60.25 million	($17.45)	-0.42

Bright Horizons Family Solutions has higher revenue and earnings than comScore. comScore is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Bright Horizons Family Solutions, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings and target prices for Bright Horizons Family Solutions and comScore, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Bright Horizons Family Solutions	1	3	4	1	2.56
comScore	1	0	0	0	1.00

Bright Horizons Family Solutions currently has a consensus price target of $131.43, suggesting a potential upside of 30.13%. Given Bright Horizons Family Solutions’ stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities analysts plainly believe Bright Horizons Family Solutions is more favorable than comScore.

Summary

Bright Horizons Family Solutions beats comScore on 13 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Bright Horizons Family Solutions

Bright Horizons Family Solutions Inc. provides early education and childcare, back-up care, educational advisory, and other workplace solutions services for employers and families in the United States, Puerto Rico, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Australia, and India. The company operates in three segments: Full Service Center-Based Child Care, Back-Up Care, and Educational Advisory and Other Services. The Full Service Center-Based Child Care segment offers traditional center-based child care and early education, preschool, and elementary education services. The Back-Up Care segment provides center-based back-up child care, in-home child and adult/elder dependent care, school-age camps, virtual tutoring, and self-sourced reimbursed care services through child care centers, school-age campuses, and in-home caregivers, as well as the back-up care network. The Educational Advisory and Other Services segment offers tuition assistance and student loan repayment program administration, workforce education, and related educational consulting services, as well as college admissions and college financial advisory services. The company was formerly known as Bright Horizons Solutions Corp. and changed its name to Bright Horizons Family Solutions Inc. in July 2012. Bright Horizons Family Solutions Inc. was founded in 1986 and is headquartered in Newton, Massachusetts.

About comScore

comScore, Inc. operates as an information and analytics company that measures audiences, consumer behavior, and advertising across media platforms in the United States, Europe, Latin America, Canada, and internationally. The company provides digital ad solutions, including Media Metrix Multi-Platform and Mobile Metrix, which measure websites and applications on computers, smartphones, and tablets; Video Metrix that delivers measurement of digital video consumption; Plan Metrix, which offers understanding of consumer lifestyle; Total Home Panel Suite, which capture OTT, connected TV, and IOT device usage and content consumption; CCR, which enhances validated campaign essentials verification of mobile and desktop video campaigns; XMedia Enhanced, which provides a deduplicated view of national programming content; Comscore marketing solutions; Lift Models, which measures the impact of advertising on a brand; Survey Analytics, which measure various consumer insights including brand health metrics; and Activation Solutions, including audience activation and content activation. The company's cross platform solutions products and services comprises Comscore TVNational that helps customers understand the performance of network advertising campaigns; Comscore TVLocal allows customers to understand consumer viewing patterns and characteristics; OnDemand Essentials that provides transactional tracking and reporting; Movie Solutions; and Hollywood Software Suite. In addition, it offers custom solutions for planning, optimization, and evaluation of advertising campaigns and brand protection. Further, the company provides products that measure movie viewership and box office results by capturing movie ticket sales in real time or near real time. It serves digital publishers, television networks, movie studios, content owners, brand advertisers, agencies, and technology providers. The company was incorporated in 1999 and is headquartered in Reston, Virginia.