Financial Contrast: Crawford & Company (NYSE:CRD.B) & IBEX (NASDAQ:IBEX)

Crawford & Company (NYSE:CRD.B) and IBEX (NASDAQ:IBEX) are both small-cap business services companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their risk, earnings, institutional ownership, dividends, analyst recommendations, valuation and profitability.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for Crawford & Company and IBEX, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Crawford & Company	1	0	0	0	1.00
IBEX	0	3	0	0	2.00

IBEX has a consensus price target of $35.00, indicating a potential upside of 30.65%. Given IBEX’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe IBEX is more favorable than Crawford & Company.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Crawford & Company and IBEX”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Crawford & Company	$1.31 billion	0.38	$19.63 million	$0.59	17.14
IBEX	$558.27 million	0.64	$36.86 million	$3.04	8.81

IBEX has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Crawford & Company. IBEX is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Crawford & Company, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Crawford & Company and IBEX’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Crawford & Company	1.50%	26.21%	5.74%
IBEX	7.35%	31.70%	15.65%

Volatility and Risk

Crawford & Company has a beta of 0.71, indicating that its stock price is 29% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, IBEX has a beta of 0.66, indicating that its stock price is 34% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

11.0% of Crawford & Company shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 81.2% of IBEX shares are held by institutional investors. 51.0% of Crawford & Company shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 3.4% of IBEX shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

IBEX beats Crawford & Company on 9 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Crawford & Company

Crawford & Co. engages in the provision of claims management and outsourcing solutions to carriers, brokers, and corporates. It operates through the following segments: Crawford Loss Adjusting, Crawford TPA Solutions, and Crawford Platform Solutions. The Crawford Loss Adjusting segment consists of adjusting services provided to insurance companies and self-insured entities related to property and casualty losses caused by physical damage to commercial and residential real property and certain types of personal property. The Crawford TPA Solutions segment provides third party administration for workers’ compensation, auto and liability, disability absence management, medical management, and accident and health to corporations, brokers, and insurers worldwide. The Crawford Platform Solutions segment is involved in the management of contractor networks and the provision of claims management services to insurance companies and self-insured entities related to property, casualty, and catastrophic losses. The company was founded by Jim Crawford in 1941 and is headquartered in Peachtree Corners, GA.

About IBEX

IBEX Limited provides end-to-end technology-enabled customer lifecycle experience solutions in the United States and internationally. The company products and services portfolio includes ibex Connect, that offers customer service, technical support, revenue generation, and other revenue generation outsourced back-office services through the CX model, which integrates voice, email, chat, SMS, social media, and other communication applications; ibex Digital, a customer acquisition solution that comprises digital marketing, e-commerce technology, and platform solutions; and ibex CX, a customer experience solution, which provides a suite of proprietary software tools to measure, monitor, and manage its clients' customer experience. It operates customer engagement and customer acquisition delivery centers. The company serves banking and financial services, delivery and logistics, health tech and wellness, high tech, retail and e-commerce, streaming and entertainment, travel and hospitality, and utility industries. The company was formerly known as IBEX Holdings Limited and changed its name to IBEX Limited in September 2019. IBEX Limited was incorporated in 2017 and is headquartered in Washington, District of Columbia. The company is a subsidiary of The Resource Group International Limited.