Comparing INNOVATE (NYSE:VATE) and Stantec (NYSE:STN)

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

Institutional and Insider Ownership

63.9% of Stantec shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 34.3% of INNOVATE shares are held by institutional investors. 0.5% of Stantec shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 57.7% of INNOVATE shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings for Stantec and INNOVATE, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Stantec	0	2	5	0	2.71
INNOVATE	1	0	0	0	1.00

Stantec presently has a consensus price target of $175.00, suggesting a potential upside of 147.67%. Given Stantec’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Stantec is more favorable than INNOVATE.

Volatility & Risk

Stantec has a beta of 0.99, indicating that its stock price is 1% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, INNOVATE has a beta of 2.33, indicating that its stock price is 133% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings & Valuation

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

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Stantec	$5.83 billion	1.36	$343.11 million	$3.21	22.01
INNOVATE	$1.25 billion	0.08	-$60.60 million	($1.87)	-3.77

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

Profitability

This table compares Stantec and INNOVATE’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Stantec	5.91%	19.70%	8.07%
INNOVATE	-1.48%	N/A	-2.35%

Summary

Stantec beats INNOVATE on 12 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Stantec

Stantec Inc. provides professional services in the areas of infrastructure and facilities to the public and private sectors in Canada, the United States, and internationally. It offers evaluation, planning, and designing infrastructure solutions; solutions for sustainable water resources, planning, management, and infrastructure; environmental services; integrated architecture, engineering, interior design, and planning solutions for buildings; and energy and resources solutions. The company also provides consulting services in engineering, architecture, interior design, landscape architecture, surveying, environmental sciences, project management, and project economics. In addition, it offers planning and design services to clients in residential, logistics, retail, infrastructure, energy, higher education, and urban regeneration sectors; architectural and interior design, and planning services in the science and technology, commercial workplace, higher education, residential, and hospitality markets. Further, the company provides transportation advisory, transport engineering, and technical design; project delivery consultancy services for mining, resources, and industrial infrastructure projects; paleontological and archaeological services for the rail, transportation, water, and power and energy sectors; and environmental and cultural resource compliance services. Additionally, it offers consulting services in sustainable building design, energy infrastructure upgrades, sustainable district heating network, and e-mobility; and planning, design, construction administration, commissioning, maintenance, decommissioning, and remediation services. The company was formerly known as Stanley Technology Group Inc. and changed its name to Stantec Inc. in October 1998. Stantec Inc. was founded in 1954 and is headquartered in Edmonton, Canada.

About INNOVATE

INNOVATE Corp., through its subsidiaries, operates in infrastructure, life sciences, and spectrum areas in the United States. The Infrastructure segment provides industrial construction, structural steel, and facility maintenance services, such as fabrication and erection of structural steel and heavy steel plate services, and large-diameter water pipes and water storage tanks; fabrication of trusses and girders; and 3-D building information modeling and detailing for commercial, industrial, and infrastructure construction projects, such as buildings and office complexes, hotels and casinos, convention centers, sports arenas and stadiums, shopping malls, hospitals, dams, bridges, mines, metal processing, refineries, pulp and paper mills, and power plants. This segment also offers solutions for digital engineering, modeling and detailing, construction, and heavy equipment installation and facility services including maintenance, repair, and installation; and manufactures pollution control scrubbers, tunnel liners, pressure vessels, strainers, filters, separators, and customized products. The Life Sciences segment develops products to treat early osteoarthritis of the knee; and aesthetic and medical technologies for the skin. The Spectrum segment operates over-the-air broadcasting stations across the United States; and Azteca America, a Spanish-language broadcast network. The company was formerly known as HC2 Holdings, Inc. and changed its name to INNOVATE Corp. in September 2021. The company was incorporated in 1994 and is headquartered in New York, New York.