Head to Head Comparison: Sabre (NASDAQ:SABR) versus VeriSign (NASDAQ:VRSN)

Sabre (NASDAQ:SABR) and VeriSign (NASDAQ:VRSN) are both computer and technology companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, earnings, valuation, profitability, dividends, risk and analyst recommendations.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations and price targets for Sabre and VeriSign, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Sabre	2	4	2	0	2.00
VeriSign	0	3	2	1	2.67

Sabre presently has a consensus price target of $3.80, indicating a potential upside of 133.13%. VeriSign has a consensus price target of $281.67, indicating a potential upside of 12.87%. Given Sabre’s higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Sabre is more favorable than VeriSign.

Volatility & Risk

Sabre has a beta of 1.07, indicating that its share price is 7% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, VeriSign has a beta of 0.78, indicating that its share price is 22% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Sabre and VeriSign’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Sabre	19.11%	N/A	-1.90%
VeriSign	49.86%	-40.66%	57.26%

Institutional & Insider Ownership

89.4% of Sabre shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 92.9% of VeriSign shares are held by institutional investors. 2.3% of Sabre shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.8% of VeriSign shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Sabre and VeriSign”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Sabre	$3.03 billion	0.21	-$278.76 million	$1.23	1.33
VeriSign	$1.56 billion	14.85	$785.70 million	$8.58	29.08

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

Summary

VeriSign beats Sabre on 9 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Sabre

Sabre Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, operates as software and technology company for travel industry in the United States, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and internationally. It operates through two segments: Travel Solutions and Hospitality Solutions. The Travel Solutions segment operates a business-to-business travel marketplace that offers travel content, such as inventory, prices, and availability from a range of travel suppliers, including airlines, hotels, car rental brands, rail carriers, cruise lines, and tour operators with a network of travel buyers comprising online and offline travel agencies, travel management companies, and corporate travel departments. This segment provides a portfolio of software technology products and solutions through software-as-a-service (SaaS) and hosted delivery models to airlines and other travel suppliers. Its products include reservation systems for carriers, commercial and operations products, agency solutions, and data-driven intelligence solutions. Its Hospitality Solutions segment provides software and solutions to hoteliers through SaaS and hosted delivery models. Sabre Corporation was incorporated in 2006 and is headquartered in Southlake, Texas.

About VeriSign

VeriSign, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides domain name registry services and internet infrastructure that enables internet navigation for various recognized domain names worldwide. The company enables the security, stability, and resiliency of internet infrastructure and services, including providing root zone maintainer services, operating two of thirteen internet root servers; and offering registration services and authoritative resolution for the .com and .net domains, which supports global e-commerce. It operates directory for .name and .cc; and back-end systems for .edu, domain names. VeriSign, Inc. was incorporated in 1995 and is headquartered in Reston, Virginia.