Critical Contrast: Afya (NASDAQ:AFYA) & Cogna Educação (OTCMKTS:COGNY)

Cogna Educação (OTCMKTS:COGNY) and Afya (NASDAQ:AFYA) are both consumer discretionary companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, dividends, valuation, institutional ownership, profitability, risk and analyst recommendations.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Cogna Educação and Afya”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Cogna Educação	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Afya	$662.01 million	1.96	$134.77 million	$1.53	9.05

Afya has higher revenue and earnings than Cogna Educação.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent recommendations and price targets for Cogna Educação and Afya, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Cogna Educação	0	1	0	1	3.00
Afya	0	6	0	0	2.00

Afya has a consensus target price of $18.00, suggesting a potential upside of 30.06%. Given Afya’s higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Afya is more favorable than Cogna Educação.

Profitability

This table compares Cogna Educação and Afya’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Cogna Educação	N/A	N/A	N/A
Afya	20.55%	18.02%	9.25%

Institutional and Insider Ownership

88.0% of Afya shares are held by institutional investors. 0.8% of Afya shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Summary

Afya beats Cogna Educação on 7 of the 9 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Cogna Educação

Cogna Educação S.A. operates as a private educational organization in Brazil and internationally. It offers in-class and distance-learning higher education, and undergraduate and graduate courses; editing, marketing, and distribution of teaching books; and educational materials and workbooks. The company also provides basic education, pre-university preparatory courses, and language courses; educational solutions for technical and higher education; and complementary activities, such as education technology development for services to complement management and training. In addition, it offers administration of kindergarten, elementary and high school activities; advises on and/or enables direct and indirect financing for students; and develops software for adaptive teaching and academic management optimization. Cogna Educação S.A. was incorporated in 1966 and is headquartered in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

About Afya

Afya Limited, through its subsidiaries, operates as a medical education group in Brazil. The company operates through three segments: Undergrad, Continuing Education, and Digital Services. It offers educational products and services, including medical schools, medical residency preparatory courses, graduate courses, and other programs to lifelong medical learners enrolled across its distribution network, as well as to third-party medical schools. The company also provides digital health services, such as subscription-based mobile app and website portal that focuses on assisting health professionals and students with clinical decision-making through tools, such as medical calculators, charts, and updated content, as well as prescriptions, clinical scores, medical procedures and laboratory exams, and others. It offers health sciences courses, which comprise medicine, dentistry, nursing, radiology, psychology, pharmacy, physical education, physiotherapy, nutrition, and biomedicine; and degree programs and courses in other subjects and disciplines, including undergraduate and post graduate courses in business administration, accounting, law, civil engineering, industrial engineering, and pedagogy. In addition, the company provides medical postgraduate specialization programs; printed and digital content; and an online medical education platform and practical medical training services. The company was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in Nova Lima, Brazil.