Empiric Student Property (ESP) Competitors

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

Which has more volatility and risk, ESP or SPI?

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

Is ESP or SPI a better dividend stock?

Empiric Student Property pays an annual dividend of GBX 4 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.5%. Spire Healthcare Group pays an annual dividend of GBX 3 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.6%. Empiric Student Property pays out 44.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Spire Healthcare Group pays out 42.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years.

Do analysts prefer ESP or SPI?

Spire Healthcare Group has a consensus target price of GBX 314.67, suggesting a potential upside of 67.91%. Given Spire Healthcare Group's stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Spire Healthcare Group is more favorable than Empiric Student Property.

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

Does the media favor ESP or SPI?

In the previous week, Empiric Student Property's average media sentiment score of 0.00 equaled Spire Healthcare Group'saverage media sentiment score.

Company	Overall Sentiment
Empiric Student Property	Neutral
Spire Healthcare Group	Neutral

Which has better valuation & earnings, ESP or SPI?

Empiric Student Property has higher earnings, but lower revenue 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
Empiric Student Property	£89.58M	6.60	£58.84M	£8.90	10.03
Spire Healthcare Group	£1.44B	0.52	£28.15M	£7.03	26.67

Does the MarketBeat Community favor ESP or SPI?

Spire Healthcare Group received 189 more outperform votes than Empiric Student Property when rated by MarketBeat users. However, 66.80% of users gave Empiric Student Property an outperform vote while only 60.96% of users gave Spire Healthcare Group an outperform vote.

Company	Underperform	Outperform
Empiric Student Property	Outperform Votes 167 66.80%	Underperform Votes 83 33.20%
Spire Healthcare Group	Outperform Votes 356 60.96%	Underperform Votes 228 39.04%

Is ESP or SPI 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
Empiric Student Property	65.69%	7.23%	2.26%
Spire Healthcare Group	1.96%	3.82%	3.73%

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

80.4% of Empiric Student Property shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 50.4% of Spire Healthcare Group shares are held by institutional investors. 0.3% of Empiric Student Property shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 34.7% of Spire Healthcare Group shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

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