Head to Head Comparison: Cardinal Infrastructure Group (NASDAQ:CDNL) & Orion Group (NYSE:ORN)

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

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current recommendations and price targets for Orion Group and Cardinal Infrastructure Group, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Orion Group	2	0	5	0	2.43
Cardinal Infrastructure Group	1	1	3	0	2.40

Orion Group currently has a consensus price target of $17.20, indicating a potential upside of 68.88%. Cardinal Infrastructure Group has a consensus price target of $59.33, indicating a potential downside of 6.91%. Given Orion Group’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Orion Group is more favorable than Cardinal Infrastructure Group.

Profitability

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

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Orion Group	0.40%	3.07%	1.10%
Cardinal Infrastructure Group	N/A	N/A	N/A

Insider and Institutional Ownership

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

Valuation and Earnings

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

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Orion Group	$852.26 million	0.48	$2.49 million	$0.09	113.17
Cardinal Infrastructure Group	$541.75 million	5.04	$22.69 million	$0.23	277.13

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

Summary

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

About Orion Group

Orion Group Holdings, Inc. operates as a specialty construction company in the building, industrial, and infrastructure sectors in the United States, Alaska, Hawaii, Canada, and the Caribbean Basin. It operates in two segments, Marine and Concrete. The company provides marine construction services, including construction, restoration, dredging, maintenance, and repair of marine transportation facilities and pipelines, bridges and causeways, and marine environmental structures. Its marine transportation facility projects comprise cruise ship port facilities, private terminals, special-use navy terminals, recreational use marinas and docks, and other marine-based facilities, as well as building or rehabilitating public port facilities for container ship loading and unloading. The company also offers on-going maintenance and repair, inspection, emergency repair, and demolition and salvage services. Its marine pipeline service projects include the installation and removal of underwater buried pipeline transmission lines; the installation of pipeline intakes and outfalls for industrial facilities; the construction of pipeline outfalls for wastewater and industrial discharges; river crossing and directional drilling; the creation of hot taps and tie-ins; and inspection, maintenance, and repair services. The company's bridge and causeway projects include the construction, repair, and maintenance of overwater bridges and causeways, as well as the develops fendering systems in marine environments. The company also provides specialty services, such as design, salvage, demolition, surveying, towing, diving and underwater inspection, excavation, and repair services. In addition, it offers elevated concrete pouring for columns, elevated beams, and structural walls; and light commercial services comprising slabs, sidewalks, ramps, and tilt walls. The company was founded in 1994 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.

About Cardinal Infrastructure Group

We provide a comprehensive suite of infrastructure services to the residential, commercial, industrial, municipal, and state infrastructure markets. Our operations leverage a large highly skilled workforce and a fleet of specialized equipment 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. We are becoming the platform of choice for a diverse array of infrastructure construction projects in our target geographies that require high-level technical expertise and sophistication. We seek to safely execute site work solutions within both the individual project’s schedule and budget, while strengthening our relationships with our growing list of customers. We believe we are one of the fastest-growing, full-service turnkey infrastructure services companies in the Southeastern United States. We deliver our suite of comprehensive infrastructure services that support the planning, preparation, installation, and development of residential, commercial, industrial, municipal, and state infrastructure projects primarily through in-house teams and equipment, significantly reducing the need for outsourcing or subcontractors which enables industry-leading project execution. Led by an experienced, long-tenured management team and supported by talented project managers, we are driven by a culture of safety and employee development. Our high-level expertise, technical sophistication, and expedited delivery of services result in strong margins. We believe we are well positioned to continue growing our revenue and profitability in a very fragmented and highly attractive industry. The Southeastern United States is one of the fastest-growing regions with respect to population and job growth. The three distinct and attractive markets in which we primarily operate today (the greater Charlotte, Raleigh, and Greensboro areas of North Carolina) have experienced a combined annual population growth of 6.6% from 2020 to 2024, compared to 2.6% for the rest of the United States. Our footprint is strategically aligned with the North Carolina Research Triangle, which houses numerous educational institutions and knowledge-sector companies that are among the core drivers of job growth in the state. In 2024, North Carolina issued approximately nine new housing permits per 1,000 residents, compared to about four new permits per 1,000 residents for the United States overall. We maintain deep, long-standing relationships with a diverse customer base, including some of the largest regional and national home builders, as well as general contractors supporting commercial and industrial construction. We believe these relationships enable us to consistently win new contracts and expand both within our current markets and into new geographies. We are already fully integrated within our Raleigh market and are completing integration buildouts in our other markets. We believe this significantly reduces wait times between each phase of construction, minimizes timeline risk, and increases the likelihood of successful execution. As the first step in the construction process, customers highly value our speed of delivery, quality of work, and reputation for excellence, which results in recurring business and better margins. Our dedication to proven processes, technology, and safety has enabled our strong growth and reputation. For the nine months ended September 30, 2025, we generated revenue of approximately $310.2 million, supported by a robust backlog of approximately $646.0 million at September 30, 2025, compared to revenue of approximately $230.3 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2024. For the year ended December 31, 2024, we generated revenue of approximately $315.2 million, supported by a robust backlog of approximately $512 million at December 31, 2024, compared to revenue of approximately $248.0 million for the year ended December 31, 2023 and a backlog of approximately $401 million at December 31, 2023. Cardinal NC was founded in 2013 by Jeremy Spivey, our Chief Executive Officer, in Raleigh, North Carolina. We originated as a niche provider of wet utilities installation and have, over time, both organically and through acquisitions, added capabilities, including grading, site clearing, erosion control, drilling and blasting, paving, and related site services, to become a full-service, end-to-end provider of turnkey infrastructure services. Acquisitions have been an integral part of our growth since our founding, and we believe they account for approximately 27% of our growth since 2013. We have completed six acquisitions to date. We deepened our presence within the Raleigh market through the acquisition of Harrelson Utility Repair & Contracting Inc. in 2021 and G. Goodwin Enterprises, LLC in 2022. We subsequently expanded into the Charlotte area through the acquisition of Monroe Roadways, Inc. in July 2023 and Purcell Construction, Inc. in January 2025. In 2024, we expanded into the Greensboro market organically, and in May 2025, we acquired Page & Associates, Inc., a local provider based in Greensboro. In October 2025, we acquired Red Clay Industries, Inc., a provider of asphalt paving, concrete contracting, concrete reclamation and soil stabilization in North Carolina. Our principal executive offices are located in Raleigh, NC.