Reviewing Maximus (NYSE:MMS) & Exela Technologies (NASDAQ:XELA)

Exela Technologies (NASDAQ:XELA) and Maximus (NYSE:MMS) are both business services companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, earnings, risk, profitability, dividends, analyst recommendations and valuation.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and recommmendations for Exela Technologies and Maximus, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Exela Technologies	0	0	0	0	0.00
Maximus	0	0	1	0	3.00

Maximus has a consensus target price of $90.00, suggesting a potential upside of 33.75%. Given Maximus’ stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Maximus is more favorable than Exela Technologies.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

16.3% of Exela Technologies shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 97.2% of Maximus shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.1% of Exela Technologies shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 1.6% of Maximus shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares Exela Technologies and Maximus’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Exela Technologies	-4.87%	N/A	-8.48%
Maximus	5.28%	21.95%	9.60%

Volatility & Risk

Exela Technologies has a beta of 1.86, suggesting that its stock price is 86% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Maximus has a beta of 0.68, suggesting that its stock price is 32% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Exela Technologies and Maximus”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Exela Technologies	$1.02 billion	0.00	-$125.16 million	($8.57)	-0.05
Maximus	$5.38 billion	0.71	$306.91 million	$4.65	14.47

Maximus has higher revenue and earnings than Exela Technologies. Exela Technologies is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Maximus, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

Maximus beats Exela Technologies on 13 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Exela Technologies

Exela Technologies, Inc. (Exela), formerly Quinpario Acquisition Corp. 2, is engaged in providing information and transaction processing solutions. The Company’s segments include Information and Transaction Processing Solutions (ITPS), Healthcare Solutions (HS) and Legal & Loss Prevention Services (LLPS). ITPS provides industry solutions for banking and financial services, including lending solutions for mortgages, banking solutions for clearing, anti-money laundering, sanctions, cross-border settlement; property and casualty insurance solutions for enrollments, and communications. The HS segment offerings include integrated accounts payable and accounts receivable, and information management for both the healthcare payer and provider markets. The LLPS segment solutions include processing of legal claims for class action and mass action settlement administrations, involving project management support, notification and collection, analysis, and distribution of settlement funds.

About Maximus

Maximus, Inc. operates as a provider of government services in the United States and internationally. It operates through three segments: U.S. Federal Services, U.S. Services, and Outside the U.S. The U.S. Services segment offers program eligibility support and enrollment; centralized multilingual customer contact centers, multichannel, and digital self-service options for enrollment; application assistance and independent health plan choice counseling; beneficiary outreach, education, eligibility, enrollment, and redeterminations; and person-centered independent disability, long-term sick, and other health assessments. This segment also provides employment services, such as eligibility support, case management, job-readiness preparation, job search and employer outreach, job retention and career advancement, and educational and training services; technology solutions; system implementation project management services; and specialized consulting services. The U.S. Federal Services segment offers Business process services, eligibility and enrollment, outreach, and other services for federal health and human services programs; clinical services; and technology solutions, including application development and modernization services, enterprise business solutions, advanced analytics and emerging technologies, cybersecurity services, and infrastructure and engineering solutions. The Outside the U.S. segment offers BPS solutions for international governments, including health and disability assessments, program administration for employment services, wellbeing solutions, and other job seeker-related services. Maximus, Inc. was founded in 1975 and is headquartered in McLean, Virginia.