Reviewing National Research (NASDAQ:NRC) & TransUnion (NYSE:TRU)

National Research (NASDAQ:NRC) and TransUnion (NYSE:TRU) are both business services companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, risk, earnings, profitability, institutional ownership, dividends and analyst recommendations.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings for National Research and TransUnion, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
National Research	1	0	0	0	1.00
TransUnion	1	5	11	0	2.59

TransUnion has a consensus price target of $110.79, indicating a potential upside of 45.09%. Given TransUnion’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe TransUnion is more favorable than National Research.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

47.3% of National Research shares are owned by institutional investors. 2.0% of National Research shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 0.3% of TransUnion shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares National Research and TransUnion”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
National Research	$143.06 million	1.94	$24.78 million	$0.76	15.82
TransUnion	$4.18 billion	3.56	$284.30 million	$2.00	38.18

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

Profitability

This table compares National Research and TransUnion’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
National Research	12.78%	83.52%	18.05%
TransUnion	8.99%	16.08%	6.47%

Dividends

National Research pays an annual dividend of $0.48 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.0%. TransUnion pays an annual dividend of $0.46 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.6%. National Research pays out 63.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. TransUnion pays out 23.0% 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. TransUnion has raised its dividend for 1 consecutive years.

Volatility & Risk

National Research has a beta of 0.41, meaning that its stock price is 59% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, TransUnion has a beta of 1.71, meaning that its stock price is 71% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

TransUnion beats National Research on 11 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About National Research

National Research Corporation provides analytics and insights that facilitate measurement and enhancement of the patient and employee experience. Its portfolio of subscription-based solutions provides actionable information and analysis to healthcare organizations across a range of mission-critical, constituent-related elements, including patient experience, service recovery, care transitions, employee engagement, reputation management, and brand loyalty. The company also offers marketing solutions that allow the tracking of awareness, perception, and consistency of healthcare brands; assessment of competitive differentiators; and enhanced segmentation tools to evaluate needs, wants, and behaviors of communities through real-time competitive assessments and enhanced segmentation tools. In addition, it provides experience solutions, such as patient experience, employee engagement, health risk assessments, care transition, and improvement tools. Further, the company provides reputation solutions that allow healthcare organizations to share a picture of their organization and ensure that timely and relevant content informs consumer decision-making; and governance solutions for not-for-profit hospital and health system boards of directors, executives, and physician leadership. National Research Corporation was founded in 1981 and is headquartered in Lincoln, Nebraska.

About TransUnion

TransUnion operates as a global consumer credit reporting agency that provides risk and information solutions. The company operates through U.S. Markets, International, and Consumer Interactive segments. The U.S. Markets segment provides consumer reports, actionable insights, and analytic services to businesses, which uses its services to acquire new customers; assess consumer ability to pay for services; identify cross-selling opportunities; measure and manage debt portfolio risk; collect debt; verify consumer identities; and mitigate fraud risk. This segment serves various industry vertical markets, including financial services, technology, commerce and communications, insurance, media, services and collections, tenant and employment, and public sectors. The International segment offers credit reports, analytics, technology solutions, and other value-added risk management services; consumer services, which help consumers to manage their personal finances; consumer credit reporting, insurance and auto information solutions, and commercial credit information services. It serves customers in financial services, retail credit, insurance, automotive, collections, public sector, and communications industries through direct and indirect channels. The company was formerly known as TransUnion Holding Company, Inc. and changed its name to TransUnion in March 2015. TransUnion was founded in 1968 and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.