Contrasting Bridger Aerospace Group (NASDAQ:BAER) and Viad (NYSE:VVI)

Viad (NYSE:VVI) and Bridger Aerospace Group (NASDAQ:BAER) are both small-cap business services companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, valuation, institutional ownership, dividends, analyst recommendations, risk and earnings.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

89.9% of Viad shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 48.9% of Bridger Aerospace Group shares are owned by institutional investors. 4.1% of Viad shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 70.7% of Bridger Aerospace Group shares are owned by company 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 Viad and Bridger Aerospace Group’s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Viad	$1.24 billion	0.59	$16.02 million	($0.38)	-90.55
Bridger Aerospace Group	$73.25 million	1.73	-$77.36 million	($1.75)	-1.54

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

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and target prices for Viad and Bridger Aerospace Group, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Viad	0	0	2	0	3.00
Bridger Aerospace Group	0	0	2	0	3.00

Viad presently has a consensus target price of $41.50, suggesting a potential upside of 20.60%. Bridger Aerospace Group has a consensus target price of $5.38, suggesting a potential upside of 99.81%. Given Bridger Aerospace Group’s higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Bridger Aerospace Group is more favorable than Viad.

Risk & Volatility

Viad has a beta of 2.04, indicating that its stock price is 104% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Bridger Aerospace Group has a beta of -0.14, indicating that its stock price is 114% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Viad and Bridger Aerospace Group’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Viad	2.30%	29.43%	3.10%
Bridger Aerospace Group	-59.69%	N/A	-15.92%

Summary

Viad beats Bridger Aerospace Group on 8 of the 12 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Viad

Viad Corp provides hospitality, leisure activities, experiential marketing, and live events in the United States, Canada, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. It operates in three segments: Pursuit, Spiro, and GES Exhibitions. The Pursuit segment offers recreational attractions, hotels and lodges, food and beverage, retail, sightseeing, and ground transportation services. This segment consists of Banff Jasper Collection, the Alaska Collection, the Glacier Park Collection, FlyOver, and Sky Lagoon. The Spiro segment operates as an experiential marketing agency that partners with brands around the world to manage and elevate their global experiential marketing activities. The GES Exhibition segment engages as an exhibition services company that partners with exhibition and conference organizers as a full-service provider of strategic and logistics solutions to manage the complexity of their shows. It serves event organizers and corporate brand marketers; and tour operators, tour wholesalers, destination management companies, and retail travel agencies. Viad Corp was founded in 1926 and is headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona.

About Bridger Aerospace Group

Bridger Aerospace Group Holdings, Inc. provides aerial wildfire management, relief and suppression, and firefighting services to federal and state government agencies in the United States. It offers fire suppression services, such as direct fire suppression aerial firefighting support services for ground crew to drop large amounts of water quickly and directly on wildfires. The company also provides aerial surveillance services, including fire suppression aircraft over an incident and tactical coordination with the incident commander through its manned and unmanned aircraft. It operates an aircraft fleet of 18 planes. The company was founded in 2014 and is headquartered in Belgrade, Montana.