Performant Healthcare, Inc. – Common Stock (NASDAQ:PHLT) and Donnelley Financial Solutions (NYSE:DFIN) Financial Review

Donnelley Financial Solutions (NYSE:DFIN) and Performant Healthcare, Inc. – Common Stock (NASDAQ:PHLT) are both small-cap computer and technology companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, valuation, analyst recommendations, profitability, earnings, dividends and risk.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings for Donnelley Financial Solutions and Performant Healthcare, Inc. – Common Stock, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Donnelley Financial Solutions	0	0	3	0	3.00
Performant Healthcare, Inc. – Common Stock	0	0	0	1	4.00

Donnelley Financial Solutions currently has a consensus price target of $71.33, suggesting a potential upside of 62.74%. Given Donnelley Financial Solutions’ higher probable upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Donnelley Financial Solutions is more favorable than Performant Healthcare, Inc. – Common Stock.

Volatility and Risk

Donnelley Financial Solutions has a beta of 1.44, meaning that its stock price is 44% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Performant Healthcare, Inc. – Common Stock has a beta of 0.03, meaning that its stock price is 97% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

93.8% of Donnelley Financial Solutions shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 77.2% of Performant Healthcare, Inc. – Common Stock shares are held by institutional investors. 11.9% of Donnelley Financial Solutions shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 9.2% of Performant Healthcare, Inc. – Common Stock shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Donnelley Financial Solutions and Performant Healthcare, Inc. – Common Stock”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Donnelley Financial Solutions	$781.90 million	1.60	$82.20 million	$3.06	14.32
Performant Healthcare, Inc. – Common Stock	$122.98 million	1.91	-$7.52 million	($0.13)	-23.08

Donnelley Financial Solutions has higher revenue and earnings than Performant Healthcare, Inc. – Common Stock. Performant Healthcare, Inc. – Common Stock is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Donnelley Financial Solutions, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Donnelley Financial Solutions and Performant Healthcare, Inc. – Common Stock’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Donnelley Financial Solutions	11.82%	20.65%	10.41%
Performant Healthcare, Inc. – Common Stock	-6.74%	-10.19%	-7.83%

Summary

Donnelley Financial Solutions beats Performant Healthcare, Inc. – Common Stock on 12 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Donnelley Financial Solutions

Donnelley Financial Solutions, Inc. provides innovative software and technology-enabled financial regulatory and compliance solutions in the United States, Asia, Europe, Canada, and internationally. It operates through four segments: Capital Markets Software Solutions (CM-SS); Capital Markets Compliance and Communications Management (CM-CCM); Investment Companies Software Solutions (IC-SS); and Investment Companies Compliance and Communications Management (IC-CCM). The CM-SS segment provides Venue and ActiveDisclosure solutions to public and private companies to manage public and private transactional and compliance processes; collaborate; and tag, validate, and file SEC documents. The CM-CCM segment offers tech-enabled services and print and distribution solutions to public and private companies for deal solutions and SEC compliance requirements. The IC-SS segment provides clients with the Arc Suite platform that contains a comprehensive suite of cloud-based solutions, including ArcDigital, ArcReporting, ArcPro, and ArcRegulatory, as well as services that enable storage and management of compliance and regulatory information in a self-service and central repository for accessing, assembling, editing, translating, rendering, and submitting documents to regulators and investors. The IC-CCM segment offers tech-enabled solutions for creating, filing and distributing regulatory communications, and solutions for investor communications, as well as XBRL and iXBRL-formatted filings pursuant for Investment Company Act through the SEC’s EDGAR system. This segment also provides turnkey proxy services, including discovery, planning and implementation, print and mail management, solicitation, tabulation services, stockholder meeting review, and expert support. Donnelley Financial Solutions, Inc. was founded in 1983 and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.

About Performant Healthcare, Inc. – Common Stock

Performant Healthcare, Inc. engages in the provision of technology-enabled audit, recovery, customer care, and related analytics services. Its services help identify improper payments, and in some markets, restructure and recover delinquent or defaulted assets and improper payments for both government and private clients. The company was founded in 1976 and is headquartered in Plantation, FL.