Reviewing Brink’s (NYSE:BCO) & Adecco (OTCMKTS:AHEXY)

Brink’s (NYSE:BCO) and Adecco (OTCMKTS:AHEXY) are both mid-cap business services companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, earnings, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, risk, valuation and profitability.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for Brink’s and Adecco, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Brink’s	0	0	1	0	3.00
Adecco	1	1	2	2	2.83

Brink’s currently has a consensus price target of $138.00, indicating a potential upside of 21.93%. Given Brink’s’ stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Brink’s is more favorable than Adecco.

Dividends

Brink’s pays an annual dividend of $1.02 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.9%. Adecco pays an annual dividend of $0.32 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.9%. Brink’s pays out 27.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Adecco pays out 34.0% 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. Brink’s has raised its dividend for 5 consecutive years.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Brink’s and Adecco”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Brink’s	$5.01 billion	0.94	$162.90 million	$3.70	30.59
Adecco	$25.04 billion	0.22	$327.88 million	$0.94	17.76

Adecco has higher revenue and earnings than Brink’s. Adecco is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Brink’s, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Brink’s and Adecco’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Brink’s	3.21%	86.86%	4.62%
Adecco	1.26%	10.94%	3.13%

Risk & Volatility

Brink’s has a beta of 1.46, indicating that its share price is 46% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Adecco has a beta of 1.2, indicating that its share price is 20% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

95.0% of Brink’s shares are held by institutional investors. 0.5% of Brink’s shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Summary

Brink’s beats Adecco on 13 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Brink’s

The Brink’s Co. engages in providing cash management services, digital retail solutions, and ATM managed services. It operates through the following geographical segments: North America, Latin America, Europe, and Rest of World. The North America segment operates in the U.S. and Canada. The Latin America segment refers to the operations in Latin American countries. The Europe segment relates to operations in European countries. The Rest of World segment focuses on the operations in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. The company was founded by Perry Brink and Fidelia Brink on May 5, 1859 and is headquartered in Richmond, VA.

About Adecco

Adecco Group AG, together with its subsidiaries, provides human resource services to businesses and organizations in Europe, North America, Asia Pacific, South America, and North Africa. It offers flexible placement, permanent placement, outsourcing, training, upskilling and reskilling, career transition and workforce transformation, consulting, talent academy, digital staffing solutions under the Adecco, Akkodis, General Assembly, Badenoch + Clark, Lee Hecht Harrison, pontoon, Spring Professional, Adia, Modis, and YOSS brand names. The company also operates Hired, a talent recruitment platform. The company was formerly known as Adecco S.A. Adecco Group AG was founded in 1957 and is based in Zurich, Switzerland.