Reviewing Acco Group (NASDAQ:ACCL) and Skillsoft (NYSE:SKIL)

Skillsoft (NYSE:SKIL) and Acco Group (NASDAQ:ACCL) are both small-cap industrials companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, earnings, risk, dividends, profitability, institutional ownership and valuation.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

87.0% of Skillsoft shares are held by institutional investors. 16.2% of Skillsoft shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares Skillsoft and Acco Group’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Skillsoft	-30.00%	-221.25%	3.40%
Acco Group	N/A	N/A	N/A

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings and target prices for Skillsoft and Acco Group, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Skillsoft	1	1	0	0	1.50
Acco Group	1	0	0	0	1.00

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Skillsoft and Acco Group”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Skillsoft	$512.67 million	0.15	-$139.82 million	($16.60)	-0.51
Acco Group	$4.89 million	8.17	$1.02 million	N/A	N/A

Acco Group has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Skillsoft.

Summary

Skillsoft beats Acco Group on 5 of the 9 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Skillsoft

Skillsoft Corp. provides content and platform and instructor-led training services in the United States and internationally. The company's Content & Platform segment engages in the sale, marketing, and delivery of its content learning solutions in areas, such as leadership and business, technology and developer, and compliance comprising individualized coaching, as well as technical skill areas. This segment also offers Percipio, an AI-driven online learning platform that delivers a learning experience through SaaS solutions. Its Instructor-Led Training segment provides training solutions, including information technology and business skills for corporations and their employees by guiding its customers throughout their lifelong technology learning journey by offering relevant and up-to-date skills training through instructor-led and self-paced, vendor certified, and other proprietary offerings. The company markets and sells their offerings to businesses of many sizes, government agencies, educational institutions, and resellers. Skillsoft Corp. is headquartered in Greenwood Village, Colorado.

About Acco Group

Accelrys, Inc. develops and commercializes scientific informatics software products and services for industries and organizations. The Company’s product lines include Pipeline Pilot, Accelrys Enterprise Research and Development (R & D) Platform; Computer Aided Design Modeling and Simulation Software; Enterprise Lab Notebook; Lab Execution Systems; Content Databases, and Data Management & Informatics Software. Its software and service solutions are used by its customers’ scientists, biologists, chemists and information technology professionals in order to aggregate, mine, integrate, analyze, simulate, manage and interactively report scientific data. Effective April 29, 2014, Dassault Systemes Americas Corp (Dassault), a unit of Dassault Systemes SA, acquired Accelrys Inc.