Head-To-Head Survey: WEX (NYSE:WEX) and Worldline (OTCMKTS:WWLNF)

Worldline (OTCMKTS:WWLNF) and WEX (NYSE:WEX) are both business services companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, earnings, risk, dividends, profitability, institutional ownership and valuation.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

97.5% of WEX shares are held by institutional investors. 1.4% of WEX shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for Worldline and WEX, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Worldline	0	0	0	0	0.00
WEX	0	12	4	0	2.25

WEX has a consensus price target of $172.92, suggesting a potential upside of 16.55%. Given WEX’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe WEX is more favorable than Worldline.

Profitability

This table compares Worldline and WEX’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Worldline	N/A	N/A	N/A
WEX	10.81%	45.36%	3.54%

Volatility & Risk

Worldline has a beta of 0.66, meaning that its share price is 34% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, WEX has a beta of 1.24, meaning that its share price is 24% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Worldline and WEX”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Worldline	$5.01 billion	0.10	-$321.38 million	N/A	N/A
WEX	$2.62 billion	1.94	$309.60 million	$7.69	19.29

WEX has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Worldline.

Summary

WEX beats Worldline on 11 of the 12 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Worldline

Worldline SA provides payments and transactional services to financial institutions, merchants, corporations, and government agencies in Northern Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, Southern Europe, and internationally. The company operates through Merchant Services; Financial Services; and Mobility & e-Transactional Services segments. The Merchant Services segment offers commercial acquiring, terminal, omnichannel payment acceptance, and digital retail services. The Financial Services segment provides issuing processing, acquiring processing, digital banking, and account payments services. The Mobility & e-Transactional Services segment offers trusted digitization, e-ticketing, and e-consumer and mobility. The company was formerly known as Atos Worldline S.A.S. and changed its name to Worldline SA in April 2014. Worldline SA was founded in 1973 and is headquartered in Puteaux, France.

About WEX

WEX Inc. operates a commerce platform in the United States and internationally. The Mobility segment offers fleet vehicle payment solutions, transaction processing, and information management services; and provides account activation and account retention services; authorization and billing inquiries, and account maintenance services; account management; credit and collections services; merchant services; analytics solutions; and ancillary services and offerings. This segment markets its products directly and indirectly to businesses and government agencies with fleets of commercial vehicles; and indirectly through co-branded and private label relationships. The Corporate Payments segment provides payment solutions, including embedded payments; and accounts payable automation and spend management solutions. This segment also markets its products directly and indirectly to customers in travel, fintech, insurance, consumer bill pay, and media verticals. The Benefits Solutions segment offers software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform for consumer directed healthcare benefits and full-service benefit enrollment solutions. In addition, its SaaS platform includes embedded payment solutions and plan administration services for consumer-directed health benefits; COBRA accounts; and benefit enrollment and administration services. Further, it offers custodial and depository services for health savings accounts; and markets its products through third-party administrators, financial institutions, payroll providers, and health plans. The company was formerly known as Wright Express Corporation and changed its name to WEX Inc. in October 2012. WEX Inc. was founded in 1983 and is based in Portland, Maine.