Critical Survey: Equifax (NYSE:EFX) & IBEX (NASDAQ:IBEX)

IBEX (NASDAQ:IBEX) and Equifax (NYSE:EFX) are both industrials companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, profitability, earnings, dividends and risk.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

81.2% of IBEX shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 96.2% of Equifax shares are owned by institutional investors. 3.4% of IBEX shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.7% of Equifax shares are owned by company 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.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and price targets for IBEX and Equifax, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
IBEX	0	3	0	0	2.00
Equifax	0	6	15	0	2.71

IBEX currently has a consensus price target of $40.00, indicating a potential downside of 1.36%. Equifax has a consensus price target of $215.16, indicating a potential upside of 35.40%. Given Equifax’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Equifax is more favorable than IBEX.

Valuation and Earnings

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

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
IBEX	$644.08 million	0.84	$46.33 million	$3.13	12.96
Equifax	$6.07 billion	3.07	$660.30 million	$5.69	27.93

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

Profitability

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

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
IBEX	7.19%	28.96%	15.36%
Equifax	10.73%	21.61%	8.41%

Risk and Volatility

IBEX has a beta of 0.72, meaning that its stock price is 28% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Equifax has a beta of 1.31, meaning that its stock price is 31% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Equifax beats IBEX on 11 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

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.

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.