Reviewing Amber International (NASDAQ:AMBR) and Hercules Capital (NYSE:HTGC)

Amber International (NASDAQ:AMBR) and Hercules Capital (NYSE:HTGC) are both finance companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, dividends, valuation, earnings, analyst recommendations, risk and institutional ownership.

Profitability

This table compares Amber International and Hercules Capital’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Amber International	-0.27%	1.07%	0.42%
Hercules Capital	67.68%	16.01%	7.71%

Volatility & Risk

Amber International has a beta of 0.66, suggesting that its share price is 34% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Hercules Capital has a beta of 0.81, suggesting that its share price is 19% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

19.7% of Hercules Capital shares are owned by institutional investors. 15.1% of Amber International shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 2.0% of Hercules Capital shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Amber International and Hercules Capital”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Amber International	$66.09 million	2.65	$3.75 million	$0.01	186.00
Hercules Capital	$532.49 million	5.96	$339.74 million	$2.01	8.43

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

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings and recommmendations for Amber International and Hercules Capital, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Amber International	1	0	1	0	2.00
Hercules Capital	0	2	5	1	2.88

Hercules Capital has a consensus target price of $18.89, indicating a potential upside of 11.48%. Given Hercules Capital’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Hercules Capital is more favorable than Amber International.

Summary

Hercules Capital beats Amber International on 13 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Amber International

iClick Interactive Asia Group Limited, together with its subsidiaries, provides online marketing services in the People’s Republic of China and internationally. It offers iAudience, an audience identification solution that allows marketers to search, identify, and customize their targeted audience to generate or enhance brand awareness; iAccess and iActivation, an audience engagement and activation solution tailored for brand awareness-driven and performance-driven campaigns; iExpress, the lite version of iAccess solution for small and medium-sized enterprises; iNsights, an online campaign results monitoring and measurement solution; and iExperience, a content creation solution. The company also provides mobile marketing solutions, which are non-search engine marketing solutions to identify, engage, and activate audience on mobile apps, as well as monitor and measure the results of online marketing activities on such channels; and other solutions that focuses on identifying, engaging, and activating audience on non-mobile app content distribution channels comprising PC banner displays, PC video advertisements, and search engine marketing. In addition, it offers enterprise solutions that help clients collate information from various consumer touchpoints and integrate them into a single data management platform to drive sales and marketing decisions to new retail, online education, real estate, and other sectors. The company sells its solutions by entering into sales contracts with entities or marketing agencies, including marketing campaign contracts. It has a strategic collaboration with Tencent International Business Group to co-develop Smart Retail and Smart Travel SaaS solutions. The company was formerly known as Optimix Media Asia Limited and changed its name to iClick Interactive Asia Group Limited in March 2017. iClick Interactive Asia Group Limited was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in Quarry Bay, Hong Kong.

About Hercules Capital

Hercules Capital, Inc. is a business development company. The firm specializing in providing venture debt, debt, senior secured loans, and growth capital to privately held venture capital-backed companies at all stages of development from startups to expansion stage including select publicly listed companies and select special opportunity lower middle market companies that require additional capital to fund acquisitions, recapitalizations and refinancing and established-stage companies. The firm provides growth capital financing solutions for capital extension; management buy-out and corporate spin-out financing solutions; company, asset specific, or intellectual property acquisition financing; convertible, subordinated and/or mezzanine loans; domestic and international corporate expansion; vendor financing; revenue acceleration by sales and marketing development, and manufacturing expansion. It provides asset-based financing with a focus on cash flow; accounts receivable facilities; equipment loans or leases; equipment acquisition; facilities build-out and/or expansion; working capital revolving lines of credit; inventory. The firm also provides bridge financing to IPO or mergers and acquisitions or technology acquisition; dividend recapitalizations and other sources of investor liquidity; cash flow financing to protect against share price volatility; competitor acquisition; pre-IPO financing for extra cash on the balance sheet; public company financing to continue asset growth and production capacity; short-term bridge financing; and strategic and intellectual property acquisition financings. It also focuses on customized financing solutions, emerging growth, mid venture, and late venture financing. The firm invests primarily in structured debt with warrants and, to a lesser extent, in senior debt and equity investments. The firm generally seeks to invest in companies that have been operating for at least six to 12 months prior to the date of their investment. It prefers to invest in technology, SaaS Finance, energy technology, sustainable and renewable technology, and life sciences. Within technology the firm focuses on advanced specialty materials and chemicals; communication and networking, consumer and business products; consumer products and services, digital media and consumer internet; electronics and computer hardware; enterprise software and services; gaming; healthcare services; information services; business services; media, content and information; mobile; resource management; security software; semiconductors; semiconductors and hardware; and software sector. Within energy technology, it invests in agriculture; clean technology; energy and renewable technology, fuels, and power technology; geothermal; smart grid and energy efficiency and monitoring technologies; solar; and wind. Within life sciences, the firm invests in biopharmaceuticals; biotechnology tools; diagnostics; drug discovery, drug platform, development, and delivery; medical devices and equipment; surgical devices; therapeutics; pharma services; and specialty pharmaceuticals. Within sustainable and renewables, it invests in Vehicle Technology, Energy Generation and Storage, Ag Technology, Advanced Materials, and Industry 4.0. It also invests in educational services. The firm invests primarily in United States based companies and considers investment in the West Coast, Mid-Atlantic regions, Southeast and Midwest, particularly in the areas of software, biotech, and information services. The firm prefers to invest between $5 million and $200 million in equity per transactions. It invests generally between $1 million and $40 million in companies focused primarily on business services, communications, electronics, hardware, and healthcare services. The firm invests primarily in private companies but also have investments in public companies. For equity investments, the firm seeks to represent a controlling interest in its portfolio companies which may exceed 25% of the voting securities of such companies. The firm seeks to invest a limited portion of its assets in equipment-based loans to early-stage prospective portfolio companies. These loans are generally for amounts up to $3 million but may be up to $15 million for certain energy technology venture investments. The firm allows certain debt investments have the right to convert a portion of the debt investment into equity. It also co-invests with other private equity firms. The firm seeks to exit its investments through initial public offering, a private sale of equity interest to a third party, a merger or an acquisition of the company or a purchase of the equity position by the company or one of its stockholders. The firm has structured debt with warrants which typically have maturities of between two and seven years with an average of three years; senior debt with an investment horizon of less than three years; equipment loans with an investment horizon ranging from three to four years; and equity related securities with an investment horizon ranging from three to seven years. The firm prefers to invest through its balance sheet capital. The firm formerly known as Hercules Technology Growth Capital, Inc. Hercules Capital, Inc. was founded in December 2003 and is based in San Mateo, California with additional offices in North America and Europe.