Analyzing Stantec (NYSE:STN) and Southland (NASDAQ:SLND)

Stantec (NYSE:STN) and Southland (NASDAQ:SLND) are both industrials companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, risk, earnings, dividends, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership and valuation.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for Stantec and Southland, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Stantec	0	2	5	0	2.71
Southland	0	1	0	0	2.00

Stantec presently has a consensus price target of $175.00, suggesting a potential upside of 147.61%. Given Stantec’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, research analysts plainly believe Stantec is more favorable than Southland.

Profitability

This table compares Stantec and Southland’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Stantec	N/A	N/A	N/A
Southland	-10.38%	-47.71%	-8.75%

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Stantec and Southland”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Stantec	N/A	N/A	N/A	$3.21	22.02
Southland	$603.01 million	0.07	-$19.25 million	($7.46)	-0.11

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

Institutional & Insider Ownership

63.9% of Stantec shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 2.8% of Southland shares are held by institutional investors. 0.5% of Stantec shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 73.4% of Southland shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Stantec beats Southland on 8 of the 10 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Stantec

Stantec Inc. provides professional services in the areas of infrastructure and facilities to the public and private sectors in Canada, the United States, and internationally. It offers evaluation, planning, and designing infrastructure solutions; solutions for sustainable water resources, planning, management, and infrastructure; environmental services; integrated architecture, engineering, interior design, and planning solutions for buildings; and energy and resources solutions. The company also provides consulting services in engineering, architecture, interior design, landscape architecture, surveying, environmental sciences, project management, and project economics. In addition, it offers planning and design services to clients in residential, logistics, retail, infrastructure, energy, higher education, and urban regeneration sectors; architectural and interior design, and planning services in the science and technology, commercial workplace, higher education, residential, and hospitality markets. Further, the company provides transportation advisory, transport engineering, and technical design; project delivery consultancy services for mining, resources, and industrial infrastructure projects; paleontological and archaeological services for the rail, transportation, water, and power and energy sectors; and environmental and cultural resource compliance services. Additionally, it offers consulting services in sustainable building design, energy infrastructure upgrades, sustainable district heating network, and e-mobility; and planning, design, construction administration, commissioning, maintenance, decommissioning, and remediation services. The company was formerly known as Stanley Technology Group Inc. and changed its name to Stantec Inc. in October 1998. Stantec Inc. was founded in 1954 and is headquartered in Edmonton, Canada.

About Southland

Southland Holdings, Inc. engages in specialty infrastructure construction business in North America and internationally. The company operates through two segments, Civil and Transportation. The Civil segment designs and constructs water pipelines, pump stations, lift stations, water and wastewater treatment plants, concrete and structural steel, outfall, and tunneling. The Transportation segment designs and constructs bridges, roadways, marine, dredging, ship terminals and piers, and specialty structures and facilities, as well as convention centers, sports stadiums, marine facilities, and ferris wheels. Southland Holdings, Inc. was founded in 1900 and is headquartered in Grapevine, Texas.