Head to Head Comparison: Healthcare Services Group (NASDAQ:HCSG) versus Bowman Consulting Group (NASDAQ:BWMN)

Healthcare Services Group (NASDAQ:HCSG) and Bowman Consulting Group (NASDAQ:BWMN) are both small-cap business services companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, profitability, earnings, institutional ownership, risk, analyst recommendations and valuation.

Profitability

This table compares Healthcare Services Group and Bowman Consulting Group’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Healthcare Services Group	2.20%	12.23%	7.52%
Bowman Consulting Group	3.33%	6.30%	3.03%

Volatility and Risk

Healthcare Services Group has a beta of 0.75, suggesting that its share price is 25% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Bowman Consulting Group has a beta of 1.32, suggesting that its share price is 32% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

98.0% of Healthcare Services Group shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 63.2% of Bowman Consulting Group shares are owned by institutional investors. 2.6% of Healthcare Services Group shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 17.4% of Bowman Consulting Group shares are owned 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.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations and price targets for Healthcare Services Group and Bowman Consulting Group, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Healthcare Services Group	0	4	3	0	2.43
Bowman Consulting Group	0	2	4	0	2.67

Healthcare Services Group presently has a consensus price target of $19.40, suggesting a potential downside of 0.64%. Bowman Consulting Group has a consensus price target of $41.13, suggesting a potential upside of 22.72%. Given Bowman Consulting Group’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Bowman Consulting Group is more favorable than Healthcare Services Group.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Healthcare Services Group and Bowman Consulting Group”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Healthcare Services Group	$1.72 billion	0.80	$39.47 million	$0.54	36.16
Bowman Consulting Group	$474.28 million	1.23	$3.03 million	$0.93	36.03

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

Summary

Bowman Consulting Group beats Healthcare Services Group on 8 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Healthcare Services Group

Healthcare Services Group, Inc. provides management, administrative, and operating services to the housekeeping, laundry, linen, facility maintenance, and dietary service departments of nursing homes, retirement complexes, rehabilitation centers, and hospitals in the United States. It operates through two segments, Housekeeping and Dietary. The Housekeeping segment engages in the cleaning, disinfecting, and sanitizing of resident rooms and common areas of the customers' facilities, as well as laundering and processing of the bed linens, uniforms, resident personal clothing, and other assorted linen items utilized at the customers' facilities. The Dietary segment provides food purchasing, meal preparation, and professional dietitian services, which include the development of menus that meet the dietary needs of residents; and on-site management and clinical consulting services to facilities. It serves long-term and post-acute care facilities, hospitals, and the healthcare industry through referrals and solicitation of target facilities. The company was incorporated in 1976 and is based in Bensalem, Pennsylvania.

About Bowman Consulting Group

Bowman Consulting Group Ltd. provides a range of real estate, energy, infrastructure, and environmental management solutions in the United States. It offers civil and site engineering services, such as conceptual land planning, environmental consulting and permitting, planning/zoning and entitlements, roadway and highway designs, erosion and sediment designs, stormwater management designs, construction administration, traffic studies, floodplain studies, and utility relocation designs; and commissioning and energy efficiency services comprise construction observation, direct systems functional performance testing, system development readiness checklist, post occupancy review, review of construction documents, deferred/seasonal functional testing, final commissioning report, and commissioning review of submittals. The company also provides construction management services, including constructability review, value engineering, budgeting and cost estimating, interagency and utility coordination, onsite observation and report evaluation, public communication and outreach, and resident engineer services, as well as bid solicitation, documentation, and preparation services; and environmental consulting services consisting of wetlands and waters of the U.S. delineations, natural resources inventories, wildlife and vegetation surveys, threatened and endangered species surveys, endangered species conservation and management, wetland creation and enhancement design, NEPA documentation, section 404/401 permitting and compliance, NPDES permitting, and phase I environmental site assessment. In addition, it offers landscape architecture, land procurement and right-of-way acquisition, structural engineering, surveying and geospatial engineering, and transportation and water resources engineering services, as well as mechanical, electrical, and plumbing engineering services. The company was incorporated in 1995 and is headquartered in Reston, Virginia.