Comparing Orion Group (NYSE:ORN) & Cardinal Infrastructure Group (NASDAQ:CDNL)

Cardinal Infrastructure Group (NASDAQ:CDNL) and Orion Group (NYSE:ORN) are both small-cap industrials companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, earnings, profitability, analyst recommendations, dividends, valuation and risk.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Cardinal Infrastructure Group and Orion Group”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Cardinal Infrastructure Group	$456.05 million	1.53	$22.69 million	$0.55	26.75
Orion Group	$852.26 million	0.38	$2.49 million	$0.15	53.46

Cardinal Infrastructure Group has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Orion Group. Cardinal Infrastructure Group is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Orion Group, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Cardinal Infrastructure Group and Orion Group’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Cardinal Infrastructure Group	N/A	N/A	N/A
Orion Group	0.62%	3.59%	1.23%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings for Cardinal Infrastructure Group and Orion Group, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Cardinal Infrastructure Group	2	0	4	0	2.33
Orion Group	1	1	5	0	2.57

Cardinal Infrastructure Group presently has a consensus target price of $46.75, indicating a potential upside of 217.70%. Orion Group has a consensus target price of $14.75, indicating a potential upside of 83.94%. Given Cardinal Infrastructure Group’s higher possible upside, equities analysts plainly believe Cardinal Infrastructure Group is more favorable than Orion Group.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

70.3% of Orion Group shares are owned by institutional investors. 61.7% of Cardinal Infrastructure Group shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 5.7% of Orion Group shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Orion Group beats Cardinal Infrastructure Group on 8 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Cardinal Infrastructure Group

Cardinal Infrastructure Group is a vertically integrated civil infrastructure and site development platform serving residential, commercial, industrial and municipal projects.

CDNL delivers its suite of comprehensive infrastructure services that support the planning, preparation, installation, and development of residential, commercial, industrial, municipal, and state infrastructure projects through wholly owned, market leading subsidiaries. Cardinal’s operations leverage in-house, highly skilled teams and equipment fleets to deliver wet utility installations (water, sewer, and stormwater systems), as well as grading, site clearing, erosion control, drilling and blasting, paving, and other related site services.

About Orion Group

Orion Group Holdings, Inc., a leading specialty construction company serving the infrastructure, industrial and building sectors, provides services both on and off the water in the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, Canada and the Caribbean Basin through its marine segment and its concrete segment. The Company’s marine segment provides construction and dredging services related to marine transportation facility construction, marine pipeline construction, marine environmental structures, dredging of waterways, channels and ports, environmental dredging, design, and specialty services. Its concrete segment provides turnkey concrete construction services including place and finish, site prep, layout, forming, and rebar placement for large commercial, structural and other associated business areas. The Company is headquartered in Houston, Texas with regional offices throughout its operating areas.