Financial Survey: Global Blue Group (NYSE:GB) and LiveRamp (NYSE:RAMP)

Global Blue Group (NYSE:GB) and LiveRamp (NYSE:RAMP) are both small-cap business services companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, dividends, profitability, valuation, earnings, institutional ownership and risk.

Volatility & Risk

Global Blue Group has a beta of 0.45, suggesting that its share price is 55% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, LiveRamp has a beta of 1.02, suggesting that its share price is 2% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings and recommmendations for Global Blue Group and LiveRamp, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Global Blue Group	0	1	0	0	2.00
LiveRamp	1	2	3	0	2.33

Global Blue Group currently has a consensus price target of $6.00, indicating a potential downside of 19.35%. LiveRamp has a consensus price target of $38.17, indicating a potential upside of 28.51%. Given LiveRamp’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe LiveRamp is more favorable than Global Blue Group.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Global Blue Group and LiveRamp”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Global Blue Group	$486.34 million	3.05	$15.12 million	$0.29	25.66
LiveRamp	$728.71 million	2.68	$11.88 million	$0.01	2,970.00

Global Blue Group has higher earnings, but lower revenue than LiveRamp. Global Blue Group is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than LiveRamp, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Global Blue Group and LiveRamp’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Global Blue Group	10.29%	44.01%	3.34%
LiveRamp	0.01%	0.97%	0.75%

Insider and Institutional Ownership

89.7% of Global Blue Group shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 93.8% of LiveRamp shares are owned by institutional investors. 5.2% of Global Blue Group shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 3.4% of LiveRamp shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

About Global Blue Group

Global Blue Group Holding AG, together with its subsidiaries, provides technology-enabled transaction processing services for merchants, banks, acquirers, governments, and travelers in Europe, the Asia Pacific, and internationally. The company operates in three segments: Tax Free Shopping Technology Solutions (TFSS), Added-Value Payment Solutions (AVPS), and Retail Tech Solutions (RTS). It offers TFSS, a value added tax (VAT) refund service that allows eligible shoppers to reclaim VAT on goods purchased outside of their home country; and intelligence and marketing services. The company also provides AVPS, a service which enables customers to pay in their choice of preferred currency, home or destination, and at the point of sale (POS) when shopping outside of their home country under the Dynamic Currency Choice and Currency Select brands. In addition, it offers currency conversion services for POS, e-commerce return solutions, dynamic currency conversion (DCC) services, and DCC services at ATMs, as well as multi-currency processing services for online retailers. Further, the company provides ZigZag, a technology platform that fully digitalizes the eCommerce returns experience and enhances the process for both retailers and consumers; Yocuda that enables retailers to send digital receipts to their customers; and ShipUp, a post-purchase engagement solution for online purchases enabling brands to deliver seamless, proactive, and branded post-purchase communication. Global Blue Group Holding AG was founded in 1980 and is headquartered in Wangen-Brüttisellen, Switzerland.

About LiveRamp

LiveRamp Holdings, Inc., a technology company, operates a data collaboration platform in the United States, Europe, the Asia-Pacific, and internationally. The company operates LiveRamp Data Collaboration platform enables an organization to unify customer and prospect data to build a single view of the customer in a way that protects consumer privacy. Its platform supports various people-based marketing solutions, including data collaboration, activation, measurement and analytics, identity, and data marketplace. The company sells its solutions to enterprise marketers, agencies, marketing technology providers, publishers, and data providers in various industry verticals, such as financial, insurance and investment services, retail, automotive, telecommunications, high tech, consumer packaged goods, healthcare, travel, entertainment, and non-profit. The company was formerly known as Acxiom Holdings, Inc. and changed its name to LiveRamp Holdings, Inc. in October 2018. The company was incorporated in 2018 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.