Critical Survey: Bowman Consulting Group (NASDAQ:BWMN) & BrightView (NYSE:BV)

BrightView (NYSE:BV) and Bowman Consulting Group (NASDAQ:BWMN) are both small-cap business services companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their valuation, profitability, dividends, analyst recommendations, earnings, institutional ownership and risk.

Volatility and Risk

BrightView has a beta of 1.28, indicating that its share price is 28% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Bowman Consulting Group has a beta of 1.33, indicating that its share price is 33% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

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

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
BrightView	1.90%	7.85%	2.98%
Bowman Consulting Group	3.33%	6.30%	3.03%

Insider and Institutional Ownership

92.4% of BrightView shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 63.2% of Bowman Consulting Group shares are owned by institutional investors. 2.8% of BrightView shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 17.4% of Bowman Consulting Group shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for BrightView and Bowman Consulting Group, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
BrightView	3	2	2	2	2.33
Bowman Consulting Group	0	3	4	0	2.57

BrightView currently has a consensus target price of $14.52, suggesting a potential upside of 5.45%. Bowman Consulting Group has a consensus target price of $40.90, suggesting a potential upside of 26.16%. Given Bowman Consulting Group’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Bowman Consulting Group is more favorable than BrightView.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares BrightView and Bowman Consulting Group”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
BrightView	$2.69 billion	0.48	$56.00 million	($0.02)	-688.35
Bowman Consulting Group	$426.56 million	1.32	$3.03 million	$0.93	34.86

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

Summary

Bowman Consulting Group beats BrightView on 10 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About BrightView

BrightView Holdings, Inc., through its subsidiaries, provides commercial landscaping services in the United States. It operates through two segments, Maintenance Services and Development Services. The Maintenance Services segment delivers a suite of recurring commercial landscaping services, including mowing, gardening, mulching and snow removal, water management, irrigation maintenance, tree care, golf course maintenance, and specialty turf maintenance. Its customers' properties include corporate and commercial properties, homeowners associations, public parks, hotels and resorts, airport authorities, municipalities, hospitals and other healthcare facilities, educational institutions, restaurants and retail, and golf courses. This segment's customer base includes approximately 8,800 office parks and corporate campuses 7,100 residential communities, and 550 educational institutions. The Development Services segment offers landscape architecture and development services for new facilities and redesign projects. Its services include project design and management services, landscape architecture and installation, irrigation installation, tree moving and installation, pool and water features, sports field, and other services. BrightView Holdings, Inc. also operates as official field consultant to various league baseball. The company was founded in 1939 and is headquartered in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania.

About Bowman Consulting Group

Bowman Consulting Group Ltd. provides a range of real estate, energy, infrastructure, and environmental management solutions in the United States. It offers civil and site engineering services, such as conceptual land planning, environmental consulting and permitting, planning/zoning and entitlements, roadway and highway designs, erosion and sediment designs, stormwater management designs, construction administration, traffic studies, floodplain studies, and utility relocation designs; and commissioning and energy efficiency services comprise construction observation, direct systems functional performance testing, system development readiness checklist, post occupancy review, review of construction documents, deferred/seasonal functional testing, final commissioning report, and commissioning review of submittals. The company also provides construction management services, including constructability review, value engineering, budgeting and cost estimating, interagency and utility coordination, onsite observation and report evaluation, public communication and outreach, and resident engineer services, as well as bid solicitation, documentation, and preparation services; and environmental consulting services consisting of wetlands and waters of the U.S. delineations, natural resources inventories, wildlife and vegetation surveys, threatened and endangered species surveys, endangered species conservation and management, wetland creation and enhancement design, NEPA documentation, section 404/401 permitting and compliance, NPDES permitting, and phase I environmental site assessment. In addition, it offers landscape architecture, land procurement and right-of-way acquisition, structural engineering, surveying and geospatial engineering, and transportation and water resources engineering services, as well as mechanical, electrical, and plumbing engineering services. The company was incorporated in 1995 and is headquartered in Reston, Virginia.