Reviewing Cardinal Infrastructure Group (NASDAQ:CDNL) and INNOVATE (NYSE:VATE)

Cardinal Infrastructure Group (NASDAQ:CDNL) and INNOVATE (NYSE:VATE) are both small-cap industrials companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, risk, profitability, earnings and valuation.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

34.3% of INNOVATE shares are held by institutional investors. 61.7% of Cardinal Infrastructure Group shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 57.7% of INNOVATE shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations for Cardinal Infrastructure Group and INNOVATE, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Cardinal Infrastructure Group	1	1	4	0	2.50
INNOVATE	1	0	0	0	1.00

Cardinal Infrastructure Group currently has a consensus price target of $46.75, suggesting a potential upside of 241.49%. Given Cardinal Infrastructure Group’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Cardinal Infrastructure Group is more favorable than INNOVATE.

Profitability

This table compares Cardinal Infrastructure Group and INNOVATE’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Cardinal Infrastructure Group	N/A	N/A	N/A
INNOVATE	-1.48%	N/A	-2.35%

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Cardinal Infrastructure Group and INNOVATE”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Cardinal Infrastructure Group	$456.05 million	1.42	$22.69 million	$0.55	24.89
INNOVATE	$1.25 billion	0.06	-$60.60 million	($1.87)	-2.99

Cardinal Infrastructure Group has higher earnings, but lower revenue than INNOVATE. INNOVATE is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Cardinal Infrastructure Group, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

Cardinal Infrastructure Group beats INNOVATE on 10 of the 12 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Cardinal Infrastructure Group

Cardinal Infrastructure Group is a vertically integrated civil infrastructure and site development platform serving residential, commercial, industrial and municipal projects.

CDNL delivers its suite of comprehensive infrastructure services that support the planning, preparation, installation, and development of residential, commercial, industrial, municipal, and state infrastructure projects through wholly owned, market leading subsidiaries. Cardinal’s operations leverage in-house, highly skilled teams and equipment fleets to deliver wet utility installations (water, sewer, and stormwater systems), as well as grading, site clearing, erosion control, drilling and blasting, paving, and other related site services.

About INNOVATE

INNOVATE Corp., through its subsidiaries, operates in infrastructure, life sciences, and spectrum areas in the United States. The Infrastructure segment provides industrial construction, structural steel, and facility maintenance services, such as fabrication and erection of structural steel and heavy steel plate services, and large-diameter water pipes and water storage tanks; fabrication of trusses and girders; and 3-D building information modeling and detailing for commercial, industrial, and infrastructure construction projects, such as buildings and office complexes, hotels and casinos, convention centers, sports arenas and stadiums, shopping malls, hospitals, dams, bridges, mines, metal processing, refineries, pulp and paper mills, and power plants. This segment also offers solutions for digital engineering, modeling and detailing, construction, and heavy equipment installation and facility services including maintenance, repair, and installation; and manufactures pollution control scrubbers, tunnel liners, pressure vessels, strainers, filters, separators, and customized products. The Life Sciences segment develops products to treat early osteoarthritis of the knee; and aesthetic and medical technologies for the skin. The Spectrum segment operates over-the-air broadcasting stations across the United States; and Azteca America, a Spanish-language broadcast network. The company was formerly known as HC2 Holdings, Inc. and changed its name to INNOVATE Corp. in September 2021. The company was incorporated in 1994 and is headquartered in New York, New York.