Spire Healthcare Group (SPI) Competitors

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

Do insiders & institutionals believe 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 insiders. Comparatively, 34.7% of Spire Healthcare Group shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Do analysts recommend ESP or SPI?

Spire Healthcare Group has a consensus target price of GBX 322, indicating a potential upside of 49.77%. Given Spire Healthcare Group's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, 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
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)	2 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	3.00

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 4.7%. Spire Healthcare Group pays an annual dividend of GBX 3 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.4%. Empiric Student Property pays out 4,444.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Spire Healthcare Group pays out 4,285.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future.

Does the MarketBeat Community believe in ESP or SPI?

Spire Healthcare Group received 188 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 60.89% 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 355 60.89%	Underperform Votes 228 39.11%

Does the media favor ESP or SPI?

In the previous week, Empiric Student Property had 3 more articles in the media than Spire Healthcare Group. MarketBeat recorded 5 mentions for Empiric Student Property and 2 mentions for Spire Healthcare Group. Empiric Student Property's average media sentiment score of 1.04 beat Spire Healthcare Group's score of 0.44 indicating that Empiric Student Property is being referred to more favorably in the media.

Company	Very Positive	Positive	Neutral	Negative	Very Negative	Overall Sentiment
Empiric Student Property	2 Very Positive mention(s)	1 Positive mention(s)	0 Neutral mention(s)	1 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive
Spire Healthcare Group	1 Very Positive mention(s)	0 Positive mention(s)	1 Neutral mention(s)	0 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Neutral

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 7.32% beat Spire Healthcare Group's return on equity.

Company	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Empiric Student Property	65.69%	7.32%	2.26%
Spire Healthcare Group	1.96%	4.00%	3.73%

Which has more risk & volatility, ESP or SPI?

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

Which has better valuation and 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	£81.60M	6.31	£53.60M	£0.09	947.78
Spire Healthcare Group	£1.44B	0.60	£28.30M	£0.07	3,071.43

Summary

Empiric Student Property beats Spire Healthcare Group on 11 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.