Financial Review: Aveanna Healthcare (NASDAQ:AVAH) versus Elanco Animal Health (NYSE:ELAN)

Aveanna Healthcare (NASDAQ:AVAH) and Elanco Animal Health (NYSE:ELAN) are both medical companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, analyst recommendations, dividends, valuation, risk, profitability and institutional ownership.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings and price targets for Aveanna Healthcare and Elanco Animal Health, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Aveanna Healthcare	0	6	5	0	2.45
Elanco Animal Health	1	3	7	2	2.77

Aveanna Healthcare presently has a consensus price target of $10.69, suggesting a potential upside of 24.42%. Elanco Animal Health has a consensus price target of $23.78, suggesting a potential upside of 1.32%. Given Aveanna Healthcare’s higher possible upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Aveanna Healthcare is more favorable than Elanco Animal Health.

Profitability

This table compares Aveanna Healthcare and Elanco Animal Health’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Aveanna Healthcare	3.29%	-143.55%	4.71%
Elanco Animal Health	0.78%	7.41%	3.64%

Insider and Institutional Ownership

88.0% of Aveanna Healthcare shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 97.5% of Elanco Animal Health shares are owned by institutional investors. 7.8% of Aveanna Healthcare shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 0.9% of Elanco Animal Health shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Aveanna Healthcare and Elanco Animal Health”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Aveanna Healthcare	$2.02 billion	0.89	-$10.93 million	$0.36	23.86
Elanco Animal Health	$4.44 billion	2.63	$338.00 million	$0.06	391.13

Elanco Animal Health has higher revenue and earnings than Aveanna Healthcare. Aveanna Healthcare is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Elanco Animal Health, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Risk & Volatility

Aveanna Healthcare has a beta of 2.06, indicating that its share price is 106% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Elanco Animal Health has a beta of 1.87, indicating that its share price is 87% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Elanco Animal Health beats Aveanna Healthcare on 9 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Aveanna Healthcare

Aveanna Healthcare Holdings Inc., a diversified home care platform company, provides pediatric and adult healthcare services in the United States. Its patient-centered care delivery platform allows patients to remain in their homes and minimizes the overutilization of high-cost care settings, such as hospitals or skilled nursing facilities. The company operates through three segments: Private Duty Services (PDS), Home Health & Hospice (HHH), and Medical Solutions (MS). The PDS segment offers PDN services, which include in-home skilled nursing services to medically fragile children and adults; nursing services in school settings in which its caregivers accompany patients to school; services to patients in its pediatric day healthcare centers; and employer of record support and personal care services, as well as in-clinic and home-based therapy services, such as physical, occupational, and speech services. The HHH segment provides home health services, including in-home skilled nursing services; physical, occupational, and speech therapy services; and medical social and aide services, as well as hospice services for patients and their families when a life-limiting illness no longer responds to cure-oriented treatments. The MS segment offers enteral nutrition supplies and other products, including formulas, supplies, and pumps to adults and children delivered on a periodic or as-needed basis. The company was incorporated in 2016 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.

About Elanco Animal Health

Elanco Animal Health Incorporated, an animal health company, innovates, develops, manufactures, and markets products for pets and farm animals. It offers pet health disease prevention products, such as parasiticide and vaccine products that protect pets from worms, fleas, and ticks under the Seresto, Advantage, Advantix, and Advocate brands; pet health therapeutics for pain, osteoarthritis, ear infections, cardiovascular, and dermatology indications in canines and felines under the Galliprant and Claro brands; vaccines, antibiotics, parasiticides, and other products for use in poultry and aquaculture production, as well as nutritional health products, including enzymes, probiotics, and prebiotics; and a range of vaccines, antibiotics, implants, parasiticides, and other products used in ruminant and swine production under the Rumensin and Baytril brands. The company sells its products to third-party distributors; veterinarians; and farm animal producers, including beef and dairy farmers, as well as pork, poultry, and aquaculture operations. Elanco Animal Health Incorporated was founded in 1954 and is headquartered in Greenfield, Indiana.