ICU Medical (NASDAQ:ICUI) and West Pharmaceutical Services (NYSE:WST) are both medical 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.
Analyst Recommendations
This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for ICU Medical and West Pharmaceutical Services, as provided by MarketBeat.
| Sell Ratings | Hold Ratings | Buy Ratings | Strong Buy Ratings | Rating Score |
---|
ICU Medical | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 3.00 |
West Pharmaceutical Services | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2.67 |
ICU Medical currently has a consensus target price of $240.50, suggesting a potential upside of 15.69%. West Pharmaceutical Services has a consensus target price of $310.00, suggesting a potential upside of 2.35%. Given ICU Medical's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities analysts plainly believe ICU Medical is more favorable than West Pharmaceutical Services.
Earnings and Valuation
This table compares ICU Medical and West Pharmaceutical Services' top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.
| Gross Revenue | Price/Sales Ratio | Net Income | Earnings Per Share | Price/Earnings Ratio |
---|
ICU Medical | $1.27 billion | 3.48 | $101.04 million | $7.36 | 28.25 |
West Pharmaceutical Services | $1.84 billion | 12.16 | $241.70 million | $3.24 | 93.48 |
West Pharmaceutical Services has higher revenue and earnings than ICU Medical. ICU Medical is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than West Pharmaceutical Services, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Insider & Institutional Ownership
91.5% of ICU Medical shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 92.6% of West Pharmaceutical Services shares are held by institutional investors. 10.9% of ICU Medical shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 1.6% of West Pharmaceutical Services shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.
Risk & Volatility
ICU Medical has a beta of 0.72, suggesting that its share price is 28% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, West Pharmaceutical Services has a beta of 1.13, suggesting that its share price is 13% more volatile than the S&P 500.
Profitability
This table compares ICU Medical and West Pharmaceutical Services' net margins, return on equity and return on assets.
| Net Margins | Return on Equity | Return on Assets |
---|
ICU Medical | 6.43% | 9.73% | 7.70% |
West Pharmaceutical Services | 14.69% | 19.01% | 12.78% |
Summary
West Pharmaceutical Services beats ICU Medical on 9 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.