MediaAlpha (NYSE:MAX) & Exela Technologies (NASDAQ:XELA) Financial Analysis

Exela Technologies (NASDAQ:XELA) and MediaAlpha (NYSE:MAX) are both small-cap business services companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, risk, profitability, earnings, valuation and dividends.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for Exela Technologies and MediaAlpha, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Exela Technologies	0	0	0	0	0.00
MediaAlpha	0	1	5	0	2.83

MediaAlpha has a consensus price target of $17.50, indicating a potential upside of 89.27%. Given MediaAlpha’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe MediaAlpha is more favorable than Exela Technologies.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

16.3% of Exela Technologies shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 64.4% of MediaAlpha shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.1% of Exela Technologies shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 11.5% of MediaAlpha shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Risk & Volatility

Exela Technologies has a beta of 1.79, meaning that its share price is 79% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, MediaAlpha has a beta of 1.12, meaning that its share price is 12% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Exela Technologies and MediaAlpha’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Exela Technologies	-4.87%	N/A	-8.48%
MediaAlpha	1.41%	-11.98%	5.19%

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Exela Technologies and MediaAlpha”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Exela Technologies	$1.02 billion	0.00	-$125.16 million	($8.57)	-0.06
MediaAlpha	$681.23 million	0.90	-$40.42 million	$0.17	54.39

MediaAlpha has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Exela Technologies. Exela Technologies is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than MediaAlpha, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

MediaAlpha beats Exela Technologies on 11 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Exela Technologies

Exela Technologies, Inc. (Exela), formerly Quinpario Acquisition Corp. 2, is engaged in providing information and transaction processing solutions. The Company’s segments include Information and Transaction Processing Solutions (ITPS), Healthcare Solutions (HS) and Legal & Loss Prevention Services (LLPS). ITPS provides industry solutions for banking and financial services, including lending solutions for mortgages, banking solutions for clearing, anti-money laundering, sanctions, cross-border settlement; property and casualty insurance solutions for enrollments, and communications. The HS segment offerings include integrated accounts payable and accounts receivable, and information management for both the healthcare payer and provider markets. The LLPS segment solutions include processing of legal claims for class action and mass action settlement administrations, involving project management support, notification and collection, analysis, and distribution of settlement funds.

About MediaAlpha

MediaAlpha, Inc., through its subsidiaries, operates an insurance customer acquisition platform in the United States. It optimizes customer acquisition in various verticals of property and casualty insurance, health insurance, and life insurance. The company was founded in 2014 and is headquartered in Los Angeles, California.