Head to Head Survey: Franklin Covey (NYSE:FC) and TrueBlue (NYSE:TBI)

TrueBlue (NYSE:TBI) and Franklin Covey (NYSE:FC) are both small-cap industrials companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, earnings, risk, profitability, analyst recommendations, dividends and valuation.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for TrueBlue and Franklin Covey, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
TrueBlue	1	1	1	0	2.00
Franklin Covey	1	1	2	0	2.25

TrueBlue currently has a consensus price target of $5.75, suggesting a potential downside of 18.32%. Franklin Covey has a consensus price target of $27.50, suggesting a potential upside of 29.15%. Given Franklin Covey’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Franklin Covey is more favorable than TrueBlue.

Profitability

This table compares TrueBlue and Franklin Covey’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
TrueBlue	-3.25%	-7.37%	-3.21%
Franklin Covey	0.83%	17.37%	4.04%

Institutional and Insider Ownership

97.2% of TrueBlue shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 69.9% of Franklin Covey shares are held by institutional investors. 8.0% of TrueBlue shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 15.2% of Franklin Covey shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares TrueBlue and Franklin Covey”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
TrueBlue	$1.62 billion	0.13	-$47.96 million	($1.78)	-3.96
Franklin Covey	$267.07 million	0.90	$3.07 million	$0.17	125.25

Franklin Covey has lower revenue, but higher earnings than TrueBlue. TrueBlue is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Franklin Covey, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Volatility & Risk

TrueBlue has a beta of 1.6, meaning that its stock price is 60% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Franklin Covey has a beta of 0.8, meaning that its stock price is 20% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Franklin Covey beats TrueBlue on 11 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About TrueBlue

TrueBlue, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides specialized workforce solutions in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Puerto Rico. It operates through three segments: PeopleReady, PeopleManagement, and PeopleScout. The company PeopleReady segment provides general, industrial, and skilled trade contingent staffing services for construction, transportation, manufacturing, retail, hospitality, and renewable energy industries. The PeopleManagement segment offers contingent, on-site industrial staffing, and commercial driver services, which includes on-site management and recruitment for the contingent industrial workforce of manufacturing, warehousing, and distribution facilities; and recruitment and management of contingent and dedicated commercial drivers to the transportation and distribution industries under the Staff Management, SIMOS Insourcing Solutions, and Centerline Drivers brands. The company PeopleScout segment provides recruitment process outsourcing, talent advisory services, and managed service provider solutions including sourcing, screening, hiring, and onboarding services; operates Affinix, a technology platform for sourcing, screening, and delivering a permanent workforce to its clients; talent advisory services, such as employer branding, recruitment marketing, talent insights, diversity, equity and inclusion consulting, candidate assessment, and talent acquisition strategy consulting services; and contingent labor programs including vendor selection, performance management, compliance monitoring, and risk management. TrueBlue, Inc. was formerly known as Labor Ready, Inc. and changed its name to TrueBlue, Inc. in December 2007. The company was incorporated in 1985 and is headquartered in Tacoma, Washington.

About Franklin Covey

Franklin Covey Co. provides training and consulting services in the areas of execution, sales performance, productivity, customer loyalty, and educational improvement for organizations and individuals worldwide. The company operates through Direct Offices, International Licensees, and Education Practice segments. It also provides a suite of individual-effectiveness and leadership-development training and products. In addition, the company operates Strive platform, a learning deployment platform; Impact platform that helps automate implementation of learning initiatives; All Access Pass, a subscription platform that enables improved deployment of content, services, technology, and metrics to deliver behavioral impact at scale; and Leader in Me, which provides access to digital versions of student leadership guides, leadership lessons, illustrated leadership stories, and other resources. Franklin Covey Co. was incorporated in 1983 and is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah.