Critical Review: Sonic Healthcare (OTCMKTS:SKHHY) vs. AMN Healthcare Services (NYSE:AMN)

AMN Healthcare Services (NYSE:AMN) and Sonic Healthcare (OTCMKTS:SKHHY) are both medical companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, earnings, profitability, dividends, risk, analyst recommendations and institutional ownership.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current recommendations and price targets for AMN Healthcare Services and Sonic Healthcare, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
AMN Healthcare Services	2	3	4	0	2.22
Sonic Healthcare	1	0	1	0	2.00

AMN Healthcare Services currently has a consensus target price of $22.64, suggesting a potential upside of 10.97%. Sonic Healthcare has a consensus target price of $30.15, suggesting a potential upside of 96.03%. Given Sonic Healthcare’s higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Sonic Healthcare is more favorable than AMN Healthcare Services.

Profitability

This table compares AMN Healthcare Services and Sonic Healthcare’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
AMN Healthcare Services	-3.51%	8.05%	2.38%
Sonic Healthcare	N/A	N/A	N/A

Risk & Volatility

AMN Healthcare Services has a beta of 0.23, suggesting that its stock price is 77% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Sonic Healthcare has a beta of 0.72, suggesting that its stock price is 28% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

99.2% of AMN Healthcare Services shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 0.0% of Sonic Healthcare shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.9% of AMN Healthcare Services shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares AMN Healthcare Services and Sonic Healthcare”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
AMN Healthcare Services	$2.73 billion	0.29	-$95.70 million	($2.49)	-8.19
Sonic Healthcare	$6.25 billion	1.22	$332.61 million	N/A	N/A

Sonic Healthcare has higher revenue and earnings than AMN Healthcare Services.

About AMN Healthcare Services

AMN Healthcare Services, Inc. provides healthcare workforce solutions and staffing services to healthcare facilities in the United States. It operates through three segments: Nurse and Allied Solutions, Physician and Leadership Solutions, and Technology and Workforce Solutions. The Nurse and Allied Solutions segment offers travel nurse staffing, labor disruption staffing, local staffing, international nurse and allied permanent placement, and allied staffing solutions. The Physician and Leadership Solutions segment provides locum tenens staffing, healthcare interim leadership staffing, executive search, and physician permanent placement solutions. The Technology and Workforce Solutions segment offers language services, vendor management systems, workforce optimization, and outsourced solutions. The company also provides allied health professionals, such as physical therapists, respiratory therapists, occupational therapists, medical and radiology technologists, lab technicians, speech pathologists, rehabilitation assistants, and pharmacists. It offers its services under the brands, including AMN Healthcare, Nursefinders, HealthSource Global Staffing, O'Grady Peyton International, Connetics, Medical Search International, DRW Healthcare Staffing, and B.E. Smith. AMN Healthcare Services, Inc. was founded in 1985 and is headquartered in Dallas, Texas.

About Sonic Healthcare

Sonic Healthcare Limited offers medical diagnostic services to medical practitioners, hospitals, community health services, and their collective patients. The company provides laboratory medicine/pathology testing services, such as biochemistry, cytopathology, genetics, haematology, histopathology, immunoserology, microbiology, molecular pathology, prenatal testing, toxicology, and ancillary functions; and radiology services, including magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography (CT), ultrasound, X-ray, mammography, nuclear medicine, PET CT, interventional procedures, and bone mineral densitometry. It offers primary care medical services comprising general practice clinics, occupational health services, skin cancer clinics, after-hours general practice services, general practice IT solutions, and community-based healthcare services. The company operates in Australia, the United Kingdom, Ireland, the United States, Germany, Switzerland, New Zealand, Belgium, and internationally. Sonic Healthcare Limited was incorporated in 1934 and is headquartered in Sydney, Australia.