Comparing National Research (NASDAQ:NRC) and Dun & Bradstreet (NYSE:DNB)

National Research (NASDAQ:NRC) and Dun & Bradstreet (NYSE:DNB) are both business services companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, risk, profitability, earnings, institutional ownership, valuation and dividends.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

47.3% of National Research shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 86.7% of Dun & Bradstreet shares are owned by institutional investors. 8.1% of National Research shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 10.4% of Dun & Bradstreet shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Risk and Volatility

National Research has a beta of 0.44, meaning that its share price is 56% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Dun & Bradstreet has a beta of 1.12, meaning that its share price is 12% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares National Research and Dun & Bradstreet’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
National Research	12.78%	83.52%	18.05%
Dun & Bradstreet	-1.60%	11.06%	4.17%

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares National Research and Dun & Bradstreet”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
National Research	$143.06 million	2.39	$24.78 million	$0.76	19.74
Dun & Bradstreet	$2.38 billion	1.70	-$28.60 million	($0.09)	-100.94

National Research has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Dun & Bradstreet. Dun & Bradstreet is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than National Research, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for National Research and Dun & Bradstreet, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
National Research	0	0	0	0	0.00
Dun & Bradstreet	0	6	0	0	2.00

Dun & Bradstreet has a consensus price target of $11.63, suggesting a potential upside of 28.01%. Given Dun & Bradstreet’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Dun & Bradstreet is more favorable than National Research.

Dividends

National Research pays an annual dividend of $0.48 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.2%. Dun & Bradstreet pays an annual dividend of $0.15 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.7%. National Research pays out 63.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Dun & Bradstreet pays out -166.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years.

Summary

National Research beats Dun & Bradstreet on 8 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About National Research

National Research Corporation provides analytics and insights that facilitate measurement and enhancement of the patient and employee experience. Its portfolio of subscription-based solutions provides actionable information and analysis to healthcare organizations across a range of mission-critical, constituent-related elements, including patient experience, service recovery, care transitions, employee engagement, reputation management, and brand loyalty. The company also offers marketing solutions that allow the tracking of awareness, perception, and consistency of healthcare brands; assessment of competitive differentiators; and enhanced segmentation tools to evaluate needs, wants, and behaviors of communities through real-time competitive assessments and enhanced segmentation tools. In addition, it provides experience solutions, such as patient experience, employee engagement, health risk assessments, care transition, and improvement tools. Further, the company provides reputation solutions that allow healthcare organizations to share a picture of their organization and ensure that timely and relevant content informs consumer decision-making; and governance solutions for not-for-profit hospital and health system boards of directors, executives, and physician leadership. National Research Corporation was founded in 1981 and is headquartered in Lincoln, Nebraska.

About Dun & Bradstreet

Dun & Bradstreet Holdings, Inc. engages in providing business decisioning data and analytics solutions. The firm is involved in providing information with its solutions to support its clients with critical business operations. It offers end-to-end solutions to clients in the small business, finance, sales & marketing, third party risk & compliance, and public sectors. The company was founded on August 8, 2018, and is headquartered in Jacksonville, FL.