Financial Contrast: ARKO (NASDAQ:ARKO) & Driven Brands (NASDAQ:DRVN)

ARKO (NASDAQ:ARKO) and Driven Brands (NASDAQ:DRVN) are both consumer discretionary companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their valuation, risk, earnings, institutional ownership, profitability, analyst recommendations and dividends.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent recommendations and price targets for ARKO and Driven Brands, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
ARKO	1	1	1	0	2.00
Driven Brands	1	6	5	2	2.57

ARKO presently has a consensus price target of $14.50, indicating a potential upside of 205.91%. Driven Brands has a consensus price target of $16.77, indicating a potential upside of 33.77%. Given ARKO’s higher possible upside, research analysts clearly believe ARKO is more favorable than Driven Brands.

Profitability

This table compares ARKO and Driven Brands’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
ARKO	0.19%	4.02%	0.41%
Driven Brands	8.61%	24.13%	5.03%

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares ARKO and Driven Brands”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
ARKO	$7.64 billion	0.07	$22.74 million	$0.07	67.71
Driven Brands	$1.86 billion	1.11	$140.16 million	$1.04	12.06

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

Institutional and Insider Ownership

78.3% of ARKO shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 77.1% of Driven Brands shares are owned by institutional investors. 21.9% of ARKO shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 4.4% of Driven Brands shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Risk and Volatility

ARKO has a beta of 1, meaning that its share price has a similar volatility profile to the S&P 500.Comparatively, Driven Brands has a beta of 0.95, meaning that its share price is 5% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Driven Brands beats ARKO on 9 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About ARKO

Arko Corp. operates convenience stores in the United States. It operates through Retail, Wholesale, Fleet Fueling, and GPMP segments. The Retail segment engages in the sale of fuel and merchandise to retail consumers. Its Wholesale segment supplies fuel to third-party dealers and consignment agents. The Fleet Fueling segment supplies fuel to proprietary and third-party cardlock, and issuance of proprietary fuel cards. Its GPMP segment supplies fuel to retail and wholesale segments. The company is based in Richmond, Virginia.

About Driven Brands

Driven Brands Holdings Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides automotive services to retail and commercial customers in the United States, Canada, and internationally. It offers various services, such as paint, collision, glass, repair, car wash, oil change, and maintenance services. The company also distributes automotive parts, including radiators, air conditioning components, and exhaust products to automotive repair shops, auto parts stores, body shops, and other auto repair outlets; windshields and glass accessories through a network of distribution centers; and consumable products, such as oil filters and wiper blades, as well as training services to repair and maintenance, and paint and collision shops. It sells its products and services under the CARSTAR, IMO, MAACO, Meineke Car Care Centers, PH Vitres D’Autos, Take 5 Oil Change, Take 5 Car Wash, Auto Glass Now, Fix Auto USA, and 1-800-Radiator & A/C, Spire Supply, and Automotive Training Institute brands. The company was founded in 1972 and is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina.