Reviewing DEFSEC Technologies (NASDAQ:DFSC) & Cadre (NYSE:CDRE)

Cadre (NYSE:CDRE) and DEFSEC Technologies (NASDAQ:DFSC) are both small-cap industrials companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their risk, valuation, analyst recommendations, dividends, earnings, institutional ownership and profitability.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

44.0% of Cadre shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 21.4% of DEFSEC Technologies shares are owned by institutional investors. 30.1% of Cadre shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations for Cadre and DEFSEC Technologies, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Cadre	0	2	6	1	2.89
DEFSEC Technologies	1	0	0	0	1.00

Cadre presently has a consensus target price of $43.33, indicating a potential upside of 38.65%. Given Cadre’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities analysts plainly believe Cadre is more favorable than DEFSEC Technologies.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Cadre and DEFSEC Technologies”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Cadre	$610.31 million	2.19	$44.14 million	$0.85	36.77
DEFSEC Technologies	$3.53 million	0.31	-$6.88 million	($4.62)	-0.12

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

Profitability

This table compares Cadre and DEFSEC Technologies’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Cadre	5.26%	12.02%	4.80%
DEFSEC Technologies	-120.97%	-144.66%	-82.13%

Volatility & Risk

Cadre has a beta of 1.29, suggesting that its stock price is 29% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, DEFSEC Technologies has a beta of 2.87, suggesting that its stock price is 187% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Cadre beats DEFSEC Technologies on 14 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Cadre

Cadre Holdings, Inc. manufactures and distributes safety that provides protection to users in hazardous or life-threatening situations in the United States and internationally. The company operates in two segments, Products and Distribution. It offers body armor product, such as concealable, corrections, and tactical armor under the Safariland and Protech Tactical brand names; survival suits, remotely operated vehicles, specialty tools, blast sensors, accessories, and vehicle blast attenuation seats for bomb safety technicians; bomb suits; duty gear, including belts and accessories; and other protective equipment comprising communications gear, forensic and investigation products, firearms cleaning solutions, and crowd control products. The company also offers third-party products, such as uniforms, optics, boots, firearms, and ammunition. It serves first responders, such as state and local law enforcement, fire and rescue, explosive ordnance disposal technicians, emergency medical technicians, fishing, and wildlife enforcement and departments of corrections, as well as federal agencies including the U.S. Department of State, U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Department of Interior, U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Department of Corrections, the Department of Energy, Los Alamos National Laboratories, Waste Isolation Plant, and various foreign government agencies. Cadre Holdings, Inc. was founded in 1964 and is headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida.

About DEFSEC Technologies

DEFSEC develops and commercializes breakthrough next-generation tactical systems for military and security forces. The Company’s current portfolio of offerings includes digitization of tactical forces for real-time shared situational awareness and targeting information from any source (including drones) streamed directly to users’ smart devices and weapons. Other DEFSEC products include countermeasures against threats such as electronic detection, lasers and drones. These systems can operate stand-alone or integrate seamlessly with OEM products and battlefield management systems, and all come integrated with TAK. The Company also has a new proprietary non-lethal product line branded PARA OPSTM with applications across all segments of the non-lethal market, including law enforcement. The Company is headquartered in Ottawa, Canada, with representative offices in London, UK and Abu Dhabi, UAE.