Critical Analysis: Shenandoah Telecommunications (NASDAQ:SHEN) vs. NextPlat (NASDAQ:NXPL)

Shenandoah Telecommunications (NASDAQ:SHEN) and NextPlat (NASDAQ:NXPL) are both small-cap utilities companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, earnings, profitability, dividends and valuation.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings and recommmendations for Shenandoah Telecommunications and NextPlat, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Shenandoah Telecommunications	0	0	1	0	3.00
NextPlat	0	0	0	0	0.00

Shenandoah Telecommunications currently has a consensus price target of $26.00, suggesting a potential upside of 101.08%. Given Shenandoah Telecommunications’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities analysts clearly believe Shenandoah Telecommunications is more favorable than NextPlat.

Volatility & Risk

Shenandoah Telecommunications has a beta of 0.67, suggesting that its share price is 33% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, NextPlat has a beta of 0.92, suggesting that its share price is 8% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

62.0% of Shenandoah Telecommunications shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 1.3% of NextPlat shares are held by institutional investors. 4.4% of Shenandoah Telecommunications shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 49.9% of NextPlat shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares Shenandoah Telecommunications and NextPlat’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Shenandoah Telecommunications	62.67%	-1.45%	-0.82%
NextPlat	-19.11%	13.09%	9.56%

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Shenandoah Telecommunications and NextPlat”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Shenandoah Telecommunications	$287.38 million	2.46	$8.04 million	$3.89	3.32
NextPlat	$37.76 million	0.47	-$3.78 million	($0.68)	-1.38

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

Summary

Shenandoah Telecommunications beats NextPlat on 10 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Shenandoah Telecommunications

Shenandoah Telecommunications Company, together with its subsidiaries, provides a range of broadband communication services and cell tower colocation space in the Mid-Atlantic portion of the United States. It operates in two segments, Broadband and Tower. The company Broadband segment offers broadband, video, and voice services to residential and commercial customers in Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky through hybrid fiber coaxial cable under the Shentel brand; and fiber optic services under the Glo Fiber brand name. This segment also leases dark fiber and provides Ethernet and wavelength fiber optic services to enterprise and wholesale customers under the Glo Fiber Enterprise and Glo Fiber Wholesale brand names; and provides voice data and DSL telephone services. The Tower segment owns macro cellular towers and leases colocation space to the wireless communications providers. Shenandoah Telecommunications Company was founded in 1902 and is based in Edinburg, Virginia.

About NextPlat

NextPlat Corp operates as a healthcare and e-commerce company in Europe, North America, South America, the Asia and Pacific, and Africa. The company operates full-service retail specialty services pharmacies that provides prescription pharmaceuticals prescription pharmaceuticals, third-party administration, risk and data management services, compounded medications, tele-pharmacy services, anti-retroviral medications, medication therapy management, contracted pharmacy services, and health practice risk management to healthcare organizations and providers, as well as supplies prescription medications to long-term care facilities. It also offers COVID-19 related diagnostics and vaccinations, and medication adherence packaging; and value-added services, such as prior authorization assistance, same-day home-medication delivery, on site provider consultation services, primary care reporting and analytics, and customized packaging solutions, as well as acquires and leases an e-commerce platform to collaborate with businesses to optimize their ability to sell their goods online. In addition, it operates e-commerce websites, as well as third-party e-commerce storefronts that provides mobile satellite services solutions for satellite-enabled voice, data, personnel and asset tracking, machine-to-machine, and internet of things connectivity services; voice, data communications, internet of things (IoT), and machine-to-machine services; tracking and monitoring solutions and services; satellite communications products; and GPS enabled emergency locator distress beacons. Further, it offers satellite tracking devices used to monitor the location, movements, and history of anything that moves; SolarTrack, a compact, lightweight, IoT tracking device powered by the sun; and GTCTrack, a subscription-based mapping and tracking portal. The company was formerly known as Orbsat Corp. and changed its name to NextPlat Corp in January 2022. NextPlat Corp is based in Coconut Grove, Florida.