Head-To-Head Comparison: Liberty Global (NASDAQ:LILAK) vs. Spok (NASDAQ:SPOK)

Liberty Global (NASDAQ:LILAK) and Spok (NASDAQ:SPOK) are both small-cap computer and technology companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, risk, profitability, earnings, valuation and dividends.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for Liberty Global and Spok, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Liberty Global	0	2	0	0	2.00
Spok	0	0	0	1	4.00

Liberty Global presently has a consensus price target of $7.85, indicating a potential downside of 3.92%. Spok has a consensus price target of $20.00, indicating a potential upside of 14.68%. Given Spok’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Spok is more favorable than Liberty Global.

Profitability

This table compares Liberty Global and Spok’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Liberty Global	-26.61%	-71.58%	-9.23%
Spok	12.12%	11.11%	8.05%

Risk & Volatility

Liberty Global has a beta of 1.02, meaning that its share price is 2% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Spok has a beta of 0.55, meaning that its share price is 45% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

53.0% of Liberty Global shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 50.8% of Spok shares are owned by institutional investors. 9.7% of Liberty Global shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 7.4% of Spok shares are owned by company 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.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Liberty Global and Spok”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Liberty Global	$4.46 billion	0.37	-$657.00 million	($5.93)	-1.38
Spok	$137.65 million	2.61	$14.97 million	$0.83	21.01

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

Summary

Spok beats Liberty Global on 10 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Liberty Global

Liberty Latin America Ltd., together with its subsidiaries, provides fixed, mobile, and subsea telecommunications services. The company operates through C&W Caribbean, C&W Panama, Liberty Networks, Liberty Puerto Rico, and Liberty Costa Rico segments. It offers communications and entertainment services, including video, broadband internet, fixed-line, telephony, and mobiles services to residential and business customers; and business products and services that include enterprise-grade connectivity, data center, hosting, and managed solutions, as well as information technology solutions for small and medium enterprises, international companies, and governmental agencies. The company also operates a sub-sea and terrestrial fiber optic cable network that connects approximately 40 markets. It provides its services under the brands of C&W, Liberty Costa Rica, Liberty Communications, BTC, Flow, and Mas Móvil. The company was incorporated in 2017 and is based in Hamilton, Bermuda.

About Spok

Spok Holdings, Inc., through its subsidiary, Spok, Inc., provides healthcare communication solutions in the United States, Europe, Canada, Australia, Asia, and the Middle East. The company's products and services enhance workflows for clinicians and support administrative compliance. It delivers clinical information to care teams when and where it matters to enhance patient outcomes; and provides GenA Pager, a one-way alphanumeric pager. The company offers subscriptions to one-way or two-way messaging services, as well as alphanumeric pagers that are configurable to support unencrypted or encrypted operation; and ancillary services, such as voicemail, and equipment loss or maintenance protection services, as well as sells devices to resellers who lease or resell them to their subscribers. Its Spok Care Connect suite products for contact centers, clinical alerting and notification, mobile communications and messaging, and public safety notifications. In addition, the company provides professional, software license updates, and product support services, as well as sells third-party equipment. It serves businesses, professionals, management personnel, medical personnel, field sales personnel and service forces, members of the construction industry and construction trades, real estate brokers and developers, sales and services organizations, specialty trade organizations, manufacturing organizations, and government agencies. The company was formerly known as USA Mobility, Inc. and changed its name to Spok Holdings, Inc. in July 2014. Spok Holdings, Inc. was founded in 1986 and is headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia.