Contrasting Healthcare Services Group (NASDAQ:HCSG) & CAPITA (OTCMKTS:CTAGY)

Healthcare Services Group (NASDAQ:HCSG) and CAPITA (OTCMKTS:CTAGY) are both small-cap business services companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, risk, earnings, dividends, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership and profitability.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

98.0% of Healthcare Services Group shares are held by institutional investors. 2.6% of Healthcare Services Group shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Healthcare Services Group and CAPITA”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Healthcare Services Group	$1.72 billion	0.69	$39.47 million	$0.14	116.79
CAPITA	$3.09 billion	0.16	$98.01 million	N/A	N/A

CAPITA has higher revenue and earnings than Healthcare Services Group.

Risk & Volatility

Healthcare Services Group has a beta of 0.7, meaning that its share price is 30% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, CAPITA has a beta of -0.17, meaning that its share price is 117% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings and price targets for Healthcare Services Group and CAPITA, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Healthcare Services Group	0	3	3	0	2.50
CAPITA	0	0	0	1	4.00

Healthcare Services Group presently has a consensus price target of $16.25, suggesting a potential downside of 0.61%. Given Healthcare Services Group’s higher probable upside, research analysts plainly believe Healthcare Services Group is more favorable than CAPITA.

Profitability

This table compares Healthcare Services Group and CAPITA’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Healthcare Services Group	0.61%	11.74%	7.19%
CAPITA	N/A	N/A	N/A

Summary

Healthcare Services Group beats CAPITA on 9 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Healthcare Services Group

Healthcare Services Group, Inc. provides management, administrative, and operating services to the housekeeping, laundry, linen, facility maintenance, and dietary service departments of nursing homes, retirement complexes, rehabilitation centers, and hospitals in the United States. It operates through two segments, Housekeeping and Dietary. The Housekeeping segment engages in the cleaning, disinfecting, and sanitizing of resident rooms and common areas of the customers' facilities, as well as laundering and processing of the bed linens, uniforms, resident personal clothing, and other assorted linen items utilized at the customers' facilities. The Dietary segment provides food purchasing, meal preparation, and professional dietitian services, which include the development of menus that meet the dietary needs of residents; and on-site management and clinical consulting services to facilities. It serves long-term and post-acute care facilities, hospitals, and the healthcare industry through referrals and solicitation of target facilities. The company was incorporated in 1976 and is based in Bensalem, Pennsylvania.

About CAPITA

Capita plc provides consulting, digital, and software products and services to clients in the private and public sectors in the United Kingdom and internationally. It operates in two divisions: Public Service and Capita Experience divisions. The company offers solutions for finance and accounting, procurement, property and infrastructure, travel and event, and workplace administration. It also provides customer experience transformation, contact management, collection and debt management, complaint handling, customer experience system and software, acquisition and retention, and data and analytics. In addition, the company offers licensing and support, support, digital policing, and engineering practice; learning and development services; education service and local education authority software; solutions for central and local government services; and business process services. Further, it provides pension administration and software, pensions consulting, and data solutions; finance software, automation, and management information systems solutions; cloud, cyber security, digital connectivity, IT services, robotic process automation, and workplace IT solutions; and actuarial, defence, financial, healthcare, housing, legal, public safety, retail, retail banking, utility, and welfare and employability services. The company was formerly known as The Capita Group plc and changed its name to Capita plc in January 2012. Capita plc was founded in 1984 and is based in London, the United Kingdom.