BrightView (NYSE:BV – Get Free Report) and Liquidity Services (NASDAQ:LQDT – Get Free Report) are both small-cap industrials companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, dividends, valuation, earnings, analyst recommendations, risk and institutional ownership.
Volatility & Risk
BrightView has a beta of 1.2, suggesting that its share price is 20% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Liquidity Services has a beta of 1.04, suggesting that its share price is 4% more volatile than the S&P 500.
Analyst Recommendations
This is a breakdown of current ratings and recommmendations for BrightView and Liquidity Services, as provided by MarketBeat.com.
| Sell Ratings | Hold Ratings | Buy Ratings | Strong Buy Ratings | Rating Score | |
| BrightView | 2 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 2.33 |
| Liquidity Services | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 3.33 |
Profitability
This table compares BrightView and Liquidity Services’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.
| Net Margins | Return on Equity | Return on Assets | |
| BrightView | 0.74% | 5.03% | 1.87% |
| Liquidity Services | 6.79% | 17.60% | 9.86% |
Institutional & Insider Ownership
92.4% of BrightView shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 71.2% of Liquidity Services shares are owned by institutional investors. 2.8% of BrightView shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 28.1% of Liquidity Services shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.
Valuation and Earnings
This table compares BrightView and Liquidity Services”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.
| Gross Revenue | Price/Sales Ratio | Net Income | Earnings Per Share | Price/Earnings Ratio | |
| BrightView | $2.67 billion | 0.37 | $56.00 million | ($0.25) | -42.78 |
| Liquidity Services | $476.67 million | 2.83 | $28.09 million | $1.02 | 42.28 |
BrightView has higher revenue and earnings than Liquidity Services. BrightView is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Liquidity Services, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Summary
Liquidity Services beats BrightView on 8 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.
About BrightView
BrightView Holdings, Inc., through its subsidiaries, provides commercial landscaping services in the United States. It operates through two segments, Maintenance Services and Development Services. The Maintenance Services segment delivers a suite of recurring commercial landscaping services, including mowing, gardening, mulching and snow removal, water management, irrigation maintenance, tree care, golf course maintenance, and specialty turf maintenance. Its customers' properties include corporate and commercial properties, homeowners associations, public parks, hotels and resorts, airport authorities, municipalities, hospitals and other healthcare facilities, educational institutions, restaurants and retail, and golf courses. This segment's customer base includes approximately 8,800 office parks and corporate campuses 7,100 residential communities, and 550 educational institutions. The Development Services segment offers landscape architecture and development services for new facilities and redesign projects. Its services include project design and management services, landscape architecture and installation, irrigation installation, tree moving and installation, pool and water features, sports field, and other services. BrightView Holdings, Inc. also operates as official field consultant to various league baseball. The company was founded in 1939 and is headquartered in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania.
About Liquidity Services
Liquidity Services, Inc. provides e-commerce marketplaces, self-directed auction listing tools, and value-added services in the United States and internationally. The company operates through four segments: GovDeals, Retail Supply Chain Group (RSCG), Capital Assets Group (CAG), and Machinio. Its marketplaces include liquidation.com that enable corporations to sell surplus and salvage consumer goods and retail capital assets; GovDeals marketplace, which provides self-directed service solutions in which sellers list their own assets that enables local and state government entities, and commercial businesses located in the United States and Canada to sell surplus and salvage assets; and AllSurplus, a centralized marketplace that connects global buyer base with assets from across the network of marketplaces in a single destination. The company also offers a suite of services, including surplus management, asset valuation, asset sales, marketing, returns management, asset recovery, and ecommerce services. In addition, it operates a global search engine platform for listing used equipment for sale in the construction, machine tool, transportation, printing, and agriculture sectors. The company offers products from industry verticals, such as consumer electronics, general merchandise, apparel, scientific equipment, aerospace parts and equipment, technology hardware, real estate, energy equipment, industrial capital assets, heavy equipment, fleet and transportation equipment, and specialty equipment. The company was incorporated in 1999 and is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland.
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