Head to Head Analysis: DLH (DLHC) vs. Its Peers

DLH (NASDAQ:DLHC) is one of 203 publicly-traded companies in the “Professional Services” industry, but how does it weigh in compared to its competitors? We will compare DLH to similar companies based on the strength of its profitability, valuation, institutional ownership, risk, dividends, analyst recommendations and earnings.

Profitability

This table compares DLH and its competitors’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
DLH	-8.51%	-10.42%	-4.04%
DLH Competitors	-0.60%	20.41%	4.31%

Risk & Volatility

DLH has a beta of 1.52, indicating that its share price is 52% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, DLH’s competitors have a beta of 0.98, indicating that their average share price is 2% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and price targets for DLH and its competitors, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
DLH	1	1	1	0	2.00
DLH Competitors	1575	6429	9160	430	2.48

As a group, “Professional Services” companies have a potential upside of 26.83%. Given DLH’s competitors stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe DLH has less favorable growth aspects than its competitors.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares DLH and its competitors top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
DLH	$253.54 million	$1.36 million	-2.46
DLH Competitors	$3.28 billion	$228.36 million	29.90

DLH’s competitors have higher revenue and earnings than DLH. DLH is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than its competitors, indicating that it is currently more affordable than other companies in its industry.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

67.2% of DLH shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 57.4% of shares of all “Professional Services” companies are owned by institutional investors. 12.8% of DLH shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 17.1% of shares of all “Professional Services” companies are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

DLH competitors beat DLH on 11 of the 13 factors compared.

About DLH

DLH Holdings Corp. provides technology-enabled business process outsourcing, program management solutions, and public health research and analytics services in the United States. It offers digital transformation and cyber security solutions, including artificial intelligence and machine learning, cloud enablement, cybersecurity ecosystem, big data analytics, and modeling and simulation to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Defense Health Agency, Tele-medicine and Advanced Technology Research Center, and US Navy Naval Information Warfare Center (NIWC). The company also provides science research and development services and solutions, such as data analytics, testing and evaluation, clinical trials research services, and epidemiology studies to support multiple operating divisions, including NIH and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as the Military Health System. In addition, it offers system engineering and integration solutions in the areas of pharmaceutical delivery logistics, fire protection engineering, biomedical equipment, and technology engineering on behalf of the Department of Veterans Affairs, NIWC, Health and Human Services, and other federal customers. The company also provides business process management services under the trademarks, e-PRAT and SPOT-m, as well as the registered trademark, Infinibyte for cloud-based solutions. The company was formerly known as TeamStaff, Inc. and changed its name to DLH Holdings Corp. in June 2012. DLH Holdings Corp. was incorporated in 1969 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.