Critical Comparison: Ardent Health (ARDT) & Its Competitors

Ardent Health (NYSE:ARDT) is one of 95 public companies in the “Medical Services” industry, but how does it contrast to its competitors? We will compare Ardent Health to related businesses based on the strength of its institutional ownership, dividends, valuation, earnings, profitability, analyst recommendations and risk.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Ardent Health and its competitors top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Ardent Health	$6.02 billion	$210.34 million	8.20
Ardent Health Competitors	$12.91 billion	$234.98 million	1.63

Ardent Health’s competitors have higher revenue and earnings than Ardent Health. Ardent Health is trading at a higher price-to-earnings ratio than its competitors, indicating that it is currently more expensive than other companies in its industry.

Profitability

This table compares Ardent Health and its competitors’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Ardent Health	3.73%	16.07%	4.69%
Ardent Health Competitors	-760.08%	-30.10%	-13.70%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent recommendations and price targets for Ardent Health and its competitors, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Ardent Health	0	2	9	2	3.00
Ardent Health Competitors	420	2241	4803	152	2.62

Ardent Health presently has a consensus price target of $20.67, suggesting a potential upside of 54.62%. As a group, “Medical Services” companies have a potential upside of 432.44%. Given Ardent Health’s competitors higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Ardent Health has less favorable growth aspects than its competitors.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

57.3% of shares of all “Medical Services” companies are held by institutional investors. 1.7% of Ardent Health shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 12.9% of shares of all “Medical Services” companies are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Ardent Health beats its competitors on 7 of the 12 factors compared.

Ardent Health Company Profile

Ardent Health Partners, Inc. owns and operates a network of hospitals and clinics that provides a range of healthcare services in the United States. It operates acute care hospitals, including rehabilitation hospitals and surgical hospitals. The company was founded in 2001 and is based in Brentwood, Tennessee. Ardent Health Partners, Inc. is a subsidiary of EGI-AM Investments, L.L.C.