Empiric Student Property (ESP) Competitors

Spire Healthcare Group (LON:SPI) and Empiric Student Property (LON:ESP) are both small-cap electronic equipment companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, dividends, institutional ownership, media sentiment, risk, profitability, analyst recommendations and valuation.

Do insiders & institutionals have more ownership in SPI or ESP?

40.6% of Spire Healthcare Group shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 42.7% of Empiric Student Property shares are held by institutional investors. 39.2% of Spire Healthcare Group shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.6% of Empiric Student Property shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Which has stronger earnings and valuation, SPI or ESP?

Empiric Student Property has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Spire Healthcare Group. Empiric Student Property is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Spire Healthcare Group, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Company	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Spire Healthcare Group	£1.55B	0.63	£28.15M	£0.05	5,228.26
Empiric Student Property	£85.60M	6.51	£58.84M	£0.04	1,951.16

Is SPI or ESP a better dividend stock?

Spire Healthcare Group pays an annual dividend of GBX 0.02 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.0%. Empiric Student Property pays an annual dividend of GBX 0.04 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.0%. Spire Healthcare Group pays out 50.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Empiric Student Property pays out 87.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future.

Do analysts prefer SPI or ESP?

Spire Healthcare Group currently has a consensus price target of GBX 294.33, indicating a potential upside of 22.38%. Given Spire Healthcare Group's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, research analysts clearly believe Spire Healthcare Group is more favorable than Empiric Student Property.

Company	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Spire Healthcare Group	0 Sell rating(s)	0 Hold rating(s)	3 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	3.00
Empiric Student Property	0 Sell rating(s)	0 Hold rating(s)	0 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	0.00

Is SPI or ESP more profitable?

Empiric Student Property has a net margin of 65.69% compared to Spire Healthcare Group's net margin of 1.96%. Empiric Student Property's return on equity of 7.23% beat Spire Healthcare Group's return on equity.

Company	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Spire Healthcare Group	1.96%	3.82%	3.73%
Empiric Student Property	65.69%	7.23%	2.26%

Which has more volatility and risk, SPI or ESP?

Spire Healthcare Group has a beta of 0.96, suggesting that its share price is 4% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Empiric Student Property has a beta of 1.05, suggesting that its share price is 5% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Does the media favor SPI or ESP?

In the previous week, Empiric Student Property had 1 more articles in the media than Spire Healthcare Group. MarketBeat recorded 1 mentions for Empiric Student Property and 0 mentions for Spire Healthcare Group. Empiric Student Property's average media sentiment score of 1.16 beat Spire Healthcare Group's score of 0.00 indicating that Empiric Student Property is being referred to more favorably in the news media.

Company	Overall Sentiment
Spire Healthcare Group	Neutral
Empiric Student Property	Positive

Summary

Spire Healthcare Group and Empiric Student Property tied by winning 9 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks.