Reviewing Information Services Group (NASDAQ:III) & Equifax (NYSE:EFX)

Information Services Group (NASDAQ:III) and Equifax (NYSE:EFX) are both business services companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, earnings, profitability, institutional ownership, risk, valuation and analyst recommendations.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for Information Services Group and Equifax, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Information Services Group	0	1	1	1	3.00
Equifax	0	6	12	1	2.74

Information Services Group presently has a consensus target price of $5.50, indicating a potential upside of 2.61%. Equifax has a consensus target price of $284.80, indicating a potential upside of 10.75%. Given Equifax’s higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Equifax is more favorable than Information Services Group.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Information Services Group and Equifax”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Information Services Group	$240.20 million	1.08	$2.84 million	$0.15	35.73
Equifax	$5.68 billion	5.60	$604.10 million	$5.11	50.32

Equifax has higher revenue and earnings than Information Services Group. Information Services Group is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Equifax, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

73.1% of Information Services Group shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 96.2% of Equifax shares are held by institutional investors. 15.9% of Information Services Group shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 1.4% of Equifax shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Dividends

Information Services Group pays an annual dividend of $0.18 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.4%. Equifax pays an annual dividend of $2.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.8%. Information Services Group pays out 120.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Equifax pays out 39.1% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Information Services Group has raised its dividend for 1 consecutive years and Equifax has raised its dividend for 1 consecutive years.

Risk & Volatility

Information Services Group has a beta of 1.28, meaning that its stock price is 28% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Equifax has a beta of 1.68, meaning that its stock price is 68% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Information Services Group and Equifax’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Information Services Group	3.27%	6.87%	3.14%
Equifax	10.95%	18.89%	7.84%

Summary

Equifax beats Information Services Group on 13 of the 16 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Information Services Group

Information Services Group, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates as a technology research and advisory company in the Americas, Europe, and the Asia Pacific. The company offers digital transformation services, including automation, cloud, and data analytics; sourcing advisory; managed governance and risk; network carrier; technology strategy and operations design; change management; and market intelligence and technology research and analysis services. It supports private and public sector organizations to transform and optimize their operational environments. The company also provides ISG Digital, a client solution platform that helps clients developing technology, transformation, sourcing, and digital solutions; and ISG Enterprise, a client solution platform that helps clients manage change and optimize operations in areas comprising finance, human resource, and Procure2Pay. In addition, it offers ISG GovernX to automate the management of third-party supplier relationships that comprise contract and project lifecycles, and risk management; ISG Generative AI; ISG Network Select to streamline and simplify how enterprises build their network solutions; HR technology and transformations; providers-as-a-business services; ISG Digital Engineering; ISG Research; and training-as-a-service. The company serves private sector clients operating in the manufacturing, banking and financial services, insurance, health sciences, energy and utilities, and consumer services industries; and public sector clients, including state and local governments, airport and transit authorities, and national and provincial government units. Information Services Group, Inc. was founded in 2006 and is based in Stamford, Connecticut.

About Equifax

Equifax Inc. operates as a data, analytics, and technology company. The company operates through three segments: Workforce Solutions, U.S. Information Solutions (USIS), and International. The Workforce Solutions segment offers services that enables customers to verify income, employment, educational history, criminal justice data, healthcare professional licensure, and sanctions of people in the United States; and employer customers with services that assist them in complying with and automating payroll-related and human resource management processes throughout the entire cycle of the employment relationship. The USIS segment provides consumer and commercial information services, such as credit information and credit scoring, credit modeling and portfolio analytics, locate, fraud detection and prevention, identity verification, and other consulting services; mortgage services; financial marketing services; identity management services; and credit monitoring products. The International segment offers information service products, which include consumer and commercial services, such as credit and financial information, and credit scoring and modeling; and credit and other marketing products and services, as well as offers information, technology, and other services to support debt collections and recovery management. The company serves customers in financial services, mortgage, retail, telecommunications, utilities, automotive, brokerage, healthcare, and insurance industries, as well as government agencies. It operates in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, India, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom, Uruguay, and the United States. The company was founded in 1899 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.