Reviewing Huron Consulting Group (HURN) and Its Rivals

Huron Consulting Group (NASDAQ:HURN) is one of 203 public companies in the “Professional Services” industry, but how does it weigh in compared to its peers? We will compare Huron Consulting Group to related companies based on the strength of its dividends, valuation, analyst recommendations, earnings, institutional ownership, risk and profitability.

Profitability

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

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Huron Consulting Group	6.10%	34.70%	9.55%
Huron Consulting Group Competitors	-0.24%	28.23%	4.31%

Insider and Institutional Ownership

93.9% of Huron Consulting Group shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 57.4% of shares of all “Professional Services” companies are owned by institutional investors. 2.1% of Huron Consulting Group shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 17.1% of shares of all “Professional Services” companies are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Huron Consulting Group and its peers top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Huron Consulting Group	$1.70 billion	$105.04 million	25.90
Huron Consulting Group Competitors	$3.28 billion	$228.38 million	35.76

Huron Consulting Group’s peers have higher revenue and earnings than Huron Consulting Group. Huron Consulting Group is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than its peers, indicating that it is currently more affordable than other companies in its industry.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current recommendations for Huron Consulting Group and its peers, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Huron Consulting Group	0	1	6	0	2.86
Huron Consulting Group Competitors	1587	6458	9172	431	2.48

Huron Consulting Group currently has a consensus price target of $215.50, indicating a potential upside of 24.56%. As a group, “Professional Services” companies have a potential upside of 24.27%. Given Huron Consulting Group’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Huron Consulting Group is more favorable than its peers.

Volatility and Risk

Huron Consulting Group has a beta of 0.09, suggesting that its share price is 91% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Huron Consulting Group’s peers have a beta of 0.97, suggesting that their average share price is 3% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Huron Consulting Group beats its peers on 7 of the 13 factors compared.

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.