Shift4 Payments (NYSE:FOUR) & Cantaloupe (NASDAQ:CTLP) Financial Review

Cantaloupe (NASDAQ:CTLP) and Shift4 Payments (NYSE:FOUR) are both business services companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, valuation, dividends, analyst recommendations, risk, profitability and earnings.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and target prices for Cantaloupe and Shift4 Payments, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Cantaloupe	1	7	0	0	1.88
Shift4 Payments	0	7	14	1	2.73

Cantaloupe presently has a consensus target price of $12.73, suggesting a potential upside of 17.47%. Shift4 Payments has a consensus target price of $92.25, suggesting a potential upside of 48.52%. Given Shift4 Payments’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Shift4 Payments is more favorable than Cantaloupe.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Cantaloupe and Shift4 Payments”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Cantaloupe	$302.55 million	2.64	$64.53 million	$0.21	51.62
Shift4 Payments	$3.33 billion	1.65	$229.60 million	$2.13	29.16

Shift4 Payments has higher revenue and earnings than Cantaloupe. Shift4 Payments is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Cantaloupe, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Cantaloupe and Shift4 Payments’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Cantaloupe	19.21%	9.58%	6.25%
Shift4 Payments	5.02%	40.19%	6.61%

Insider & Institutional Ownership

75.8% of Cantaloupe shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 98.9% of Shift4 Payments shares are held by institutional investors. 7.1% of Cantaloupe shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 25.2% of Shift4 Payments shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Volatility & Risk

Cantaloupe has a beta of 1.1, indicating that its stock price is 10% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Shift4 Payments has a beta of 1.66, indicating that its stock price is 66% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Shift4 Payments beats Cantaloupe on 12 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Cantaloupe

Cantaloupe, Inc., a digital payments and software services company, provides technology solutions for self-service commerce market. The company offers integrated solutions for payments processing, logistics, and back-office management. It also provides G11 cashless and pulse kits that are 4G LTE digital payment devices for payment and consumer engagement applications; G11 chip kit, a digital reader that accepts contact EMV and contactless EMV payment methods; Engage series comprising Engage and Engage Combo, which are digital touchscreen devices that offers networking, security, and interactivity payment methods; and card touchscreen card readers, including P66, P100, P100Pro, and P30. In addition, the company offers self-checkout kiosks,?smart store?concepts, and the Cantaloupe Go management platform comprising Go Mini, Go MiniX, Go Plus100, Go Plus200, Go Plus300, Go Max, Cooler Cafe, and Smart Market; Go Portal, a robust cloud-based platform; and Cheq products, which supports attended and unattended self-service kiosks for the stadium, entertainment, and festival sectors. Further, it provides integrated software services for payment or asset tracking devices in the field to connect into platform for advanced data management, analytics, route scheduling, and loyalty and reward programs; and a range of self-service hardware solutions for vending, micro-markets, amusement, arcade, commercial laundry, air/vacuum, car wash, and other applications. Additionally, the company offers professional, network infrastructure, card processing, and customer/consumer services. Cantaloupe, Inc. was formerly known as USA Technologies, Inc. The company was incorporated in 1992 and is headquartered in Malvern, Pennsylvania.

About Shift4 Payments

Shift4 Payments, Inc. (NYSE FOUR) provides integrated payment processing and technology solutions in the United States. Its payments platform provides omni-channel card acceptance and processing solutions, including end-to-end payment processing for various payment types; merchant acquiring; proprietary omni-channel gateway; complementary software integrations; integrated and mobile point-of-sale (POS) solutions; security and risk management solutions; and reporting and analytical tools, as well as tokenization, risk management/underwriting, payment device and chargeback management, fraud prevention, and gift card solutions. The company also offers suite of technology solutions, such as Lighthouse, a cloud-based business intelligence tool that includes customer engagement, social media management, online reputation management, scheduling, and product pricing, as well as reporting and analytics; integrated POS for merchants business; and Skytab, a mobile payment solution. In addition, it provides marketplace technology that enable seamless integrations into third-party applications, which includes online delivery services, payroll, timekeeping, and other human resource services. Further, the company offers merchant management, training and education, marketing management, and incentives tracking solutions. Additionally, it provides merchant underwriting, onboarding and activation, training, risk management, and support services; and software integrations and compliance management, and partner support and services. The company was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in Allentown, Pennsylvania.