Financial Comparison: Franklin Covey (NYSE:FC) vs. Equifax (NYSE:EFX)

Equifax (NYSE:EFX) and Franklin Covey (NYSE:FC) are both industrials companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, risk, institutional ownership, valuation, dividends, analyst recommendations and earnings.

Risk and Volatility

Equifax has a beta of 1.27, suggesting that its stock price is 27% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Franklin Covey has a beta of 0.76, suggesting that its stock price is 24% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and recommmendations for Equifax and Franklin Covey, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Equifax	0	7	14	0	2.67
Franklin Covey	1	1	2	0	2.25

Equifax currently has a consensus price target of $200.55, suggesting a potential upside of 2.90%. Franklin Covey has a consensus price target of $27.50, suggesting a potential upside of 71.71%. Given Franklin Covey’s higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Franklin Covey is more favorable than Equifax.

Profitability

This table compares Equifax and Franklin Covey’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Equifax	11.27%	22.48%	8.52%
Franklin Covey	1.88%	25.57%	5.52%

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Equifax and Franklin Covey”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Equifax	$6.07 billion	3.75	$660.30 million	$6.19	31.49
Franklin Covey	$262.75 million	0.69	$3.07 million	$0.45	35.59

Equifax has higher revenue and earnings than Franklin Covey. Equifax is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Franklin Covey, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

96.2% of Equifax shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 69.9% of Franklin Covey shares are held by institutional investors. 1.7% of Equifax shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 15.2% of Franklin Covey shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Equifax beats Franklin Covey on 10 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Equifax

Equifax Inc. operates as a data, analytics, and technology company. The company operates through three segments: Workforce Solutions, U.S. Information Solutions (USIS), and International. The Workforce Solutions segment offers services that enables customers to verify income, employment, educational history, criminal justice data, healthcare professional licensure, and sanctions of people in the United States; and employer customers with services that assist them in complying with and automating payroll-related and human resource management processes throughout the entire cycle of the employment relationship. The USIS segment provides consumer and commercial information services, such as credit information and credit scoring, credit modeling and portfolio analytics, locate, fraud detection and prevention, identity verification, and other consulting services; mortgage services; financial marketing services; identity management services; and credit monitoring products. The International segment offers information service products, which include consumer and commercial services, such as credit and financial information, and credit scoring and modeling; and credit and other marketing products and services, as well as offers information, technology, and other services to support debt collections and recovery management. The company serves customers in financial services, mortgage, retail, telecommunications, utilities, automotive, brokerage, healthcare, and insurance industries, as well as government agencies. It operates in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, India, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom, Uruguay, and the United States. The company was founded in 1899 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.

About Franklin Covey

Franklin Covey Co. provides training and consulting services in the areas of execution, sales performance, productivity, customer loyalty, and educational improvement for organizations and individuals worldwide. The company operates through Direct Offices, International Licensees, and Education Practice segments. It also provides a suite of individual-effectiveness and leadership-development training and products. In addition, the company operates Strive platform, a learning deployment platform; Impact platform that helps automate implementation of learning initiatives; All Access Pass, a subscription platform that enables improved deployment of content, services, technology, and metrics to deliver behavioral impact at scale; and Leader in Me, which provides access to digital versions of student leadership guides, leadership lessons, illustrated leadership stories, and other resources. Franklin Covey Co. was incorporated in 1983 and is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah.