Financial Survey: Huron Consulting Group (NASDAQ:HURN) and ATIF (NASDAQ:ZBAI)

Huron Consulting Group (NASDAQ:HURN) and ATIF (NASDAQ:ZBAI) are both business services companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, earnings, risk, profitability, dividends, valuation and analyst recommendations.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

93.9% of Huron Consulting Group shares are owned by institutional investors. 2.2% of Huron Consulting Group shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 32.2% of ATIF shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Volatility and Risk

Huron Consulting Group has a beta of 0.27, indicating that its share price is 73% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, ATIF has a beta of -0.6, indicating that its share price is 160% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Huron Consulting Group and ATIF’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Huron Consulting Group	6.54%	27.06%	9.58%
ATIF	N/A	-90.49%	-79.46%

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings and recommmendations for Huron Consulting Group and ATIF, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Huron Consulting Group	0	0	6	0	3.00
ATIF	1	0	0	0	1.00

Huron Consulting Group presently has a consensus price target of $175.25, indicating a potential upside of 5.23%. Given Huron Consulting Group’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities analysts clearly believe Huron Consulting Group is more favorable than ATIF.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Huron Consulting Group and ATIF”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Huron Consulting Group	$1.66 billion	1.73	$116.63 million	$5.97	27.90
ATIF	$620,000.00	11.92	-$3.19 million	($7.19)	-1.07

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

Summary

Huron Consulting Group beats ATIF on 12 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Huron Consulting Group

Huron Consulting Group Inc., a professional services firm, provides consultancy services in the United States and internationally. It operates through three segments: Healthcare, Education, and Commercial. The Healthcare segment provides financial and operational performance improvement consulting services; digital offerings, spanning technology and analytic-related services; software products; organizational transformation services; revenue cycle managed and outsourcing services; financial and capital advisory consulting services; and strategy and innovation consulting services to national and regional health systems, academic and community health systems, federal health system, public, children’s and critical access hospitals, physician practices and medical groups, payors, and long-term care or post-acute providers. The Education segment provides digital solutions, spanning technology, and analytic-related services; Huron Research product suite, a software suite designed to facilitate and enhance research administration service delivery and compliance; research-focused consulting and managed services; strategy and operations consulting services for public and private colleges and universities, research institutes, and other education-related organizations. The Commercial segment delivers digital services and software products, and financial advisory services to financial, energy and utilities, professional and business services, life science, consumer products, and industrials and manufacturing industries, as well as public sector and nonprofit organizations. The company was incorporated in 2002 and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.

About ATIF

ATIF Holdings Ltd. engages in the provision of financial consulting services. It is also involved in merger and acquisition business advisory, post-listing compliance, management support, and related services. The company was founded on January 5, 2015 and is headquartered in Lake Forest, CA.