Equifax (NYSE:EFX) & Huron Consulting Group (NASDAQ:HURN) Financial Survey

Equifax (NYSE:EFX) and Huron Consulting Group (NASDAQ:HURN) are both business services companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, profitability, risk, institutional ownership, valuation, dividends and earnings.

Volatility & Risk

Equifax has a beta of 1.68, suggesting that its share price is 68% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Huron Consulting Group has a beta of 0.29, suggesting that its share price is 71% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

96.2% of Equifax shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 93.9% of Huron Consulting Group shares are held by institutional investors. 1.4% of Equifax shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 2.2% of Huron Consulting Group shares are held by 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.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent recommendations for Equifax and Huron Consulting Group, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Equifax	0	8	12	1	2.67
Huron Consulting Group	0	0	6	0	3.00

Equifax presently has a consensus price target of $282.47, indicating a potential upside of 18.54%. Huron Consulting Group has a consensus price target of $171.50, indicating a potential upside of 14.40%. Given Equifax’s higher probable upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Equifax is more favorable than Huron Consulting Group.

Profitability

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

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Equifax	10.95%	18.89%	7.84%
Huron Consulting Group	6.60%	25.52%	9.50%

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Equifax and Huron Consulting Group”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Equifax	$5.68 billion	5.19	$604.10 million	$5.11	46.63
Huron Consulting Group	$1.52 billion	1.71	$116.63 million	$5.73	26.16

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

Summary

Equifax beats Huron Consulting Group on 10 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

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.

About Huron Consulting Group

Huron Consulting Group Inc., a professional services firm, provides consultancy services in the United States and internationally. It operates through three segments: Healthcare, Education, and Commercial. The Healthcare segment provides financial and operational performance improvement consulting services; digital offerings, spanning technology and analytic-related services; software products; organizational transformation services; revenue cycle managed and outsourcing services; financial and capital advisory consulting services; and strategy and innovation consulting services to national and regional health systems, academic and community health systems, federal health system, public, children’s and critical access hospitals, physician practices and medical groups, payors, and long-term care or post-acute providers. The Education segment provides digital solutions, spanning technology, and analytic-related services; Huron Research product suite, a software suite designed to facilitate and enhance research administration service delivery and compliance; research-focused consulting and managed services; strategy and operations consulting services for public and private colleges and universities, research institutes, and other education-related organizations. The Commercial segment delivers digital services and software products, and financial advisory services to financial, energy and utilities, professional and business services, life science, consumer products, and industrials and manufacturing industries, as well as public sector and nonprofit organizations. The company was incorporated in 2002 and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.