Reviewing Franklin Covey (NYSE:FC) & Equifax (NYSE:EFX)

Franklin Covey (NYSE:FC) and Equifax (NYSE:EFX) are both business services companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, risk, institutional ownership, valuation, analyst recommendations, dividends and profitability.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings for Franklin Covey and Equifax, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Franklin Covey	1	0	2	0	2.33
Equifax	0	8	12	1	2.67

Franklin Covey currently has a consensus target price of $27.00, suggesting a potential upside of 48.98%. Equifax has a consensus target price of $282.47, suggesting a potential upside of 18.54%. Given Franklin Covey’s higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe Franklin Covey is more favorable than Equifax.

Valuation and Earnings

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

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Franklin Covey	$287.23 million	0.80	$23.40 million	$0.79	22.94
Equifax	$5.68 billion	5.19	$604.10 million	$5.11	46.63

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

Profitability

This table compares Franklin Covey and Equifax’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Franklin Covey	3.81%	19.08%	6.12%
Equifax	10.95%	18.89%	7.84%

Risk & Volatility

Franklin Covey has a beta of 0.86, suggesting that its stock price is 14% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Equifax has a beta of 1.68, suggesting that its stock price is 68% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

69.9% of Franklin Covey shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 96.2% of Equifax shares are owned by institutional investors. 15.5% of Franklin Covey shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 1.4% of Equifax shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Summary

Equifax beats Franklin Covey on 12 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Franklin Covey

Franklin Covey Co. provides training and consulting services in the areas of execution, sales performance, productivity, customer loyalty, and educational improvement for organizations and individuals worldwide. The company operates through Direct Offices, International Licensees, and Education Practice segments. It also provides a suite of individual-effectiveness and leadership-development training and products. In addition, the company operates Strive platform, a learning deployment platform; Impact platform that helps automate implementation of learning initiatives; All Access Pass, a subscription platform that enables improved deployment of content, services, technology, and metrics to deliver behavioral impact at scale; and Leader in Me, which provides access to digital versions of student leadership guides, leadership lessons, illustrated leadership stories, and other resources. Franklin Covey Co. was incorporated in 1983 and is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah.

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.