Financial Contrast: Icon (NASDAQ:ICLR) and Stevanato Group (NYSE:STVN)

Stevanato Group (NYSE:STVN) and Icon (NASDAQ:ICLR) are both healthcare 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.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and recommmendations for Stevanato Group and Icon, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Stevanato Group	0	5	2	2	2.67
Icon	1	9	9	1	2.50

Icon has a consensus price target of $213.76, suggesting a potential upside of 6.72%. Given Icon’s higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Icon is more favorable than Stevanato Group.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Stevanato Group and Icon”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Stevanato Group	$1.25 billion	3.48	$158.21 million	€0.58	24.70
Icon	$8.23 billion	1.86	$229.34 million	$5.81	34.48

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

Risk and Volatility

Stevanato Group has a beta of 0.8, suggesting that its stock price is 20% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Icon has a beta of 1.19, suggesting that its stock price is 19% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

95.6% of Icon shares are held by institutional investors. 0.7% of Stevanato Group shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 44.0% of Icon 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.

Profitability

This table compares Stevanato Group and Icon’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Stevanato Group	11.24%	10.51%	6.22%
Icon	5.45%	7.73%	4.39%

Summary

Icon beats Stevanato Group on 9 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Stevanato Group

Stevanato Group is an Italian provider of drug-containment and drug-delivery solutions for the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and diagnostic industries. Founded in 1949 by Giovanni Stevanato, the company began as a glassmaking business and has expanded into a global supplier of products and services for the life sciences sector. The company makes primary packaging for injectable medicines, including glass vials, cartridges, syringes and ampoules. Its offerings also include ready-to-use containers, as well as services such as product development, analytical testing and packaging support.

About Icon

ICON plc is a global contract research organization (CRO) that provides outsourced development services to pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical device and government organizations. Its work supports the development of medicines and other healthcare products from early research through clinical trials and regulatory submission. The company’s services include clinical trial design and management, data management and biostatistics, regulatory support, laboratory services, medical imaging and patient recruitment.