Sezzle (NASDAQ:SEZL) vs. Fair Isaac (NYSE:FICO) Financial Review

Sezzle (NASDAQ:SEZL) and Fair Isaac (NYSE:FICO) are both business services companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, institutional ownership, earnings, valuation, profitability, analyst recommendations and risk.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

2.0% of Sezzle shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 85.8% of Fair Isaac shares are owned by institutional investors. 57.7% of Sezzle shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 3.5% of Fair Isaac shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares Sezzle and Fair Isaac’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Sezzle	25.29%	101.18%	18.90%
Fair Isaac	29.86%	-59.47%	28.78%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings and recommmendations for Sezzle and Fair Isaac, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Sezzle	0	0	2	1	3.33
Fair Isaac	0	4	8	0	2.67

Sezzle presently has a consensus target price of $231.50, suggesting a potential downside of 45.97%. Fair Isaac has a consensus target price of $1,964.92, suggesting a potential downside of 17.50%. Given Fair Isaac’s higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Fair Isaac is more favorable than Sezzle.

Risk and Volatility

Sezzle has a beta of 8.49, suggesting that its stock price is 749% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Fair Isaac has a beta of 1.35, suggesting that its stock price is 35% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Sezzle and Fair Isaac”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Sezzle	$159.36 million	15.08	$7.10 million	$9.40	45.58
Fair Isaac	$1.72 billion	33.76	$512.81 million	$20.45	116.47

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

Summary

Fair Isaac beats Sezzle on 10 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Sezzle

Sezzle Inc. operates as a technology-enabled payments company primarily in the United States and Canada. The company provides payment solution in-store and at online retail stores; and through proprietary payments solution that connects consumers with merchants. It also offers Sezzle Platform that provides a payments solution for consumers that extends credit at the point-of-sale allowing consumers to purchase and receive the ordered merchandise at the time of sale while paying in installments over time; Pay-in-Four, which allows consumers to pay a fourth of the purchase price up front and then another fourth of the purchase price every two weeks thereafter over a total of six weeks; Pay-in-Full that allows consumers to pay for the full value of their order up-front through the Sezzle Platform without the extension of credit; and Pay-in-Two and other alternative installment options, which allow consumer to pay half of the value of their order up-front and the second half in two weeks. In addition, the company provides Sezzle Virtual Card that allows consumers to access the Sezzle Platform in the form of close-end installment loans and shop with merchants that are not integrated with Sezzle; Sezzle Anywhere, a paid subscription service that allows consumers to use their Sezzle Virtual Card at any merchant online or in-store; Sezzle Premium, a paid subscription service that allows its consumers to access large, non-integrated premium merchants; and Sezzle Up, an opt-in feature of the Sezzle Platform. Further, it offers Long-Term Lending through collaboration with third-party lenders and Product Innovation. Sezzle Inc. was incorporated in 2016 and is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

About Fair Isaac

Fair Isaac Corporation develops analytic, software, and digital decisioning technologies and services that enable businesses to automate, enhance, and connect decisions in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific. The company operates in two segments, Scores and Software. The Software segment provides pre-configured analytic and decision management solution designed for various business needs or processes, such as account origination, customer management, customer engagement, fraud detection, financial crimes compliance, and marketing, as well as associated professional services. This segment also offers FICO Platform, a modular software offering designed to support advanced analytic and decision use cases, as well as stand-alone analytic and decisioning software that can be configured by customers to address a wide range of business use cases. The Scores segment provides business-to-business scoring solutions and services for consumers that give clients access to predictive credit and other scores that can be integrated into their transaction streams and decision-making processes, as well as business-to-consumer scoring solutions comprising myFICO.com subscription offerings. It offers FICO Customer Analytics, FICO Responsible AI, FICO Advisors, FICO Business Outcome Simulator, FICO Forecaster, FICO TRIAD Customer Manager, FICO Blaze Advisor, FICO Xpress Optimization, FICO Falcon Fraud Manager, FICO Analytics Workbench, FICO Data Orchestrator, FICO DMP Streaming, FICO Decision Optimizer, and FICO Strategy Director, as well as software implementation and configuration services. The company markets its products and services primarily through its direct sales organization and indirect channels, as well as online. The company was formerly known as Fair Isaac & Company, Inc. and changed its name to Fair Isaac Corporation in July 1992. Fair Isaac Corporation was founded in 1956 and is headquartered in Bozeman, Montana.