Acuity (NYSE:AYI) & LiveRamp (NYSE:RAMP) Critical Review

LiveRamp (NYSE:RAMP) and Acuity (NYSE:AYI) are both mid-cap business services companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, risk, analyst recommendations, profitability, institutional ownership, dividends and earnings.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

93.8% of LiveRamp shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 98.2% of Acuity shares are owned by institutional investors. 3.3% of LiveRamp shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 2.9% of Acuity shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Volatility and Risk

LiveRamp has a beta of 1.27, meaning that its share price is 27% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Acuity has a beta of 1.27, meaning that its share price is 27% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings for LiveRamp and Acuity, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
LiveRamp	0	6	2	0	2.25
Acuity	0	4	5	0	2.56

LiveRamp presently has a consensus target price of $40.21, suggesting a potential upside of 6.57%. Acuity has a consensus target price of $397.17, suggesting a potential upside of 19.69%. Given Acuity’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Acuity is more favorable than LiveRamp.

Profitability

This table compares LiveRamp and Acuity’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
LiveRamp	17.95%	8.28%	6.29%
Acuity	10.25%	20.26%	12.21%

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares LiveRamp and Acuity”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
LiveRamp	$812.94 million	2.82	$145.95 million	$2.28	16.55
Acuity	$4.35 billion	2.29	$396.60 million	$15.08	22.00

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

Summary

Acuity beats LiveRamp on 10 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About LiveRamp

LiveRamp Holdings, Inc., a technology company, operates a data collaboration platform in the United States, Europe, the Asia-Pacific, and internationally. The company operates LiveRamp Data Collaboration platform enables an organization to unify customer and prospect data to build a single view of the customer in a way that protects consumer privacy. Its platform supports various people-based marketing solutions, including data collaboration, activation, measurement and analytics, identity, and data marketplace. The company sells its solutions to enterprise marketers, agencies, marketing technology providers, publishers, and data providers in various industry verticals, such as financial, insurance and investment services, retail, automotive, telecommunications, high tech, consumer packaged goods, healthcare, travel, entertainment, and non-profit. The company was formerly known as Acxiom Holdings, Inc. and changed its name to LiveRamp Holdings, Inc. in October 2018. The company was incorporated in 2018 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

About Acuity

Acuity Brands, Inc. provides lighting, lighting controls, building management system, location-aware applications in the United States and internationally. The company operates in two segments, Acuity Brands Lighting and Lighting Controls (ABL); and the Intelligent Spaces Group (ISG). The ABL segment provides commercial, architectural, and specialty lighting solutions, as well as lighting controls and components for various indoor and outdoor applications under the A-Light, Aculux, American Electric Lighting, Cyclone, Dark to Light, eldoLED, Eureka, Gotham, Healthcare Lighting, Holophane, Hydrel, Indy, IOTA, Juno, Lithonia Lighting, Luminaire LED, Luminis, Mark Architectural Lighting, nLight, OPTOTRONIC, Peerless, RELOCWiring Solutions, and Sensor Switch. This segment serves electrical distributors, retail home improvement centers, electric utilities, national accounts, original equipment manufacturers, digital retailers, lighting showrooms, and energy service companies. The ISG segment offers building management solutions, such as products for controlling heating, ventilation, air conditioning, lighting, shades, refrigeration, and building access that deliver end-to-end optimization of those building systems; and building management software that enhances building system management and automates labor intensive tasks. This segment serves system integrators, as well as retail stores, airports, and enterprise campuses. The company offers its products and solutions under the Atrius, Distech Controls, and KE2 Therm Solutions brands. Acuity Brands, Inc. was incorporated in 2001 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.