Reviewing Bowman Consulting Group (NASDAQ:BWMN) & Fluor (NYSE:FLR)

Fluor (NYSE:FLR) and Bowman Consulting Group (NASDAQ:BWMN) are both industrials companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, dividends, analyst recommendations, profitability, earnings, valuation and risk.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Fluor and Bowman Consulting Group”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Fluor	$15.54 billion	0.44	-$51.00 million	($12.28)	-4.13
Bowman Consulting Group	$490.02 million	1.51	$12.85 million	$0.40	106.90

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

Institutional & Insider Ownership

88.1% of Fluor shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 63.2% of Bowman Consulting Group shares are held by institutional investors. 1.7% of Fluor shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 17.5% of Bowman Consulting Group shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings for Fluor and Bowman Consulting Group, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Fluor	1	3	4	0	2.38
Bowman Consulting Group	1	7	0	0	1.88

Fluor presently has a consensus target price of $63.33, suggesting a potential upside of 24.82%. Bowman Consulting Group has a consensus target price of $43.00, suggesting a potential upside of 0.56%. Given Fluor’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities analysts clearly believe Fluor is more favorable than Bowman Consulting Group.

Profitability

This table compares Fluor and Bowman Consulting Group’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Fluor	-12.85%	8.82%	3.57%
Bowman Consulting Group	1.30%	2.67%	1.20%

Volatility & Risk

Fluor has a beta of 1.28, suggesting that its share price is 28% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Bowman Consulting Group has a beta of 1.48, suggesting that its share price is 48% more volatile than the S&P 500.

About Fluor

Fluor Corporation provides engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC); fabrication and modularization; operation and maintenance; asset integrity; and project management services worldwide. The company operates through Energy Solutions, Urban Solutions, Mission Solutions, and Other segments. The Energy Solutions segment provides solutions to the energy transition markets, including asset decarbonization, carbon capture, renewable fuels, waste-to-energy, green chemicals, hydrogen, nuclear power, and other low-carbon energy sources. It also provides consulting services, including feasibility studies, process assessments, and project finance structuring; and a range of services for small modular reactor technologies, conventional and advanced nuclear reactor technologies. This segment serves the production and fuels, chemicals, LNG, power markets, chemicals and petrochemical industries. The Urban Solutions segment offers EPC and project management services to the infrastructure, advanced technologies, life sciences, and mining and metals industries. This segment also provides staffing services to the company and third-party clients with technical, professional, and craft resources on a contract or permanent placement basis. The Mission Solutions segment offers technical solutions to the U.S. and other governments. It also delivers solutions for nuclear security and operation, nuclear waste management, and laboratory management; and operation and maintenance, logistics, EPC, and life support solutions for mission-critical facilities across U.S. military service organizations. This segment offers site management, environmental remediation, and decommissioning for nuclear remediation at governmental facilities, as well as services to commercial nuclear clients. Fluor Corporation was founded in 1912 and is headquartered in Irving, Texas.

About Bowman Consulting Group

Bowman Consulting Group Ltd. provides a range of real estate, energy, infrastructure, and environmental management solutions in the United States. It offers civil and site engineering services, such as conceptual land planning, environmental consulting and permitting, planning/zoning and entitlements, roadway and highway designs, erosion and sediment designs, stormwater management designs, construction administration, traffic studies, floodplain studies, and utility relocation designs; and commissioning and energy efficiency services comprise construction observation, direct systems functional performance testing, system development readiness checklist, post occupancy review, review of construction documents, deferred/seasonal functional testing, final commissioning report, and commissioning review of submittals. The company also provides construction management services, including constructability review, value engineering, budgeting and cost estimating, interagency and utility coordination, onsite observation and report evaluation, public communication and outreach, and resident engineer services, as well as bid solicitation, documentation, and preparation services; and environmental consulting services consisting of wetlands and waters of the U.S. delineations, natural resources inventories, wildlife and vegetation surveys, threatened and endangered species surveys, endangered species conservation and management, wetland creation and enhancement design, NEPA documentation, section 404/401 permitting and compliance, NPDES permitting, and phase I environmental site assessment. In addition, it offers landscape architecture, land procurement and right-of-way acquisition, structural engineering, surveying and geospatial engineering, and transportation and water resources engineering services, as well as mechanical, electrical, and plumbing engineering services. The company was incorporated in 1995 and is headquartered in Reston, Virginia.