Critical Review: Insperity (NYSE:NSP) & Atlantic International (NASDAQ:ATLN)

Atlantic International (NASDAQ:ATLN) and Insperity (NYSE:NSP) are both business services companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their valuation, earnings, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, dividends, profitability and risk.

Volatility and Risk

Atlantic International has a beta of 1.76, suggesting that its share price is 76% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Insperity has a beta of 1.13, suggesting that its share price is 13% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for Atlantic International and Insperity, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Atlantic International	0	0	0	0	0.00
Insperity	1	3	0	0	1.75

Insperity has a consensus target price of $95.67, suggesting a potential upside of 11.33%. Given Insperity’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Insperity is more favorable than Atlantic International.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

93.4% of Insperity shares are owned by institutional investors. 22.3% of Atlantic International shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 5.5% of Insperity shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Atlantic International and Insperity”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Atlantic International	$27.89 million	5.92	-$5.63 million	($8.24)	-0.40
Insperity	$6.58 billion	0.49	$91.00 million	$2.41	35.66

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

Profitability

This table compares Atlantic International and Insperity’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Atlantic International	N/A	-298.20%	-42.32%
Insperity	1.38%	72.22%	4.16%

Summary

Insperity beats Atlantic International on 10 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Atlantic International

Atlantic International Corp. engages in the design, development, and manufacture of genetic analysis technologies. Its services include RNA sequencing and DNA sequencing. The company was founded by William C. St. Laurent and Daniel R. Jones in 2013 and is headquartered in Billercia, MA.

About Insperity

Insperity, Inc. engages in the provision of human resources (HR) and business solutions to improve business performance for small and medium-sized businesses primarily in the United States. It offers its HR services through its workforce optimization and workforce synchronization solutions that include a range of human resources functions, such as payroll and employment administration, employee benefits, workers' compensation, government compliance, performance management, and training and development services. The company also provides Insperity Premier, a cloud-based human capital management platform that offers professional employer organization HR outsourcing solutions to its clients; people management services; and employer liability management services, as well as solutions for middle market. In addition, it offers MarketPlace, an e-commerce portal that offers a range of products and services; and Workforce Acceleration, a human capital management and payroll services solution; integrated payroll; benefits administration; HR administration and employee onboarding; time and attendance; performance management; reporting and analytics; recruiting; employment screening; retirement; and insurance services. The company was formerly known as Administaff, Inc. and changed its name to Insperity, Inc. in March 2011. Insperity, Inc. was founded in 1986 and is headquartered in Kingwood, Texas.