Financial Review: Sterling Infrastructure (STRL) versus The Competition

Sterling Infrastructure (NASDAQ:STRL) is one of 188 public companies in the “Construction & Engineering” industry, but how does it compare to its competitors? We will compare Sterling Infrastructure to similar businesses based on the strength of its dividends, valuation, profitability, institutional ownership, earnings, analyst recommendations and risk.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings for Sterling Infrastructure and its competitors, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Sterling Infrastructure	0	2	6	0	2.75
Sterling Infrastructure Competitors	850	3467	7356	362	2.60

Sterling Infrastructure currently has a consensus target price of $729.83, indicating a potential upside of 153.32%. As a group, “Construction & Engineering” companies have a potential upside of 42.60%. Given Sterling Infrastructure’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities analysts clearly believe Sterling Infrastructure is more favorable than its competitors.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Sterling Infrastructure and its competitors gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Sterling Infrastructure	$4.31 billion	$290.15 million	16.17
Sterling Infrastructure Competitors	$9.55 billion	$456.60 million	-5,815.08

Sterling Infrastructure’s competitors have higher revenue and earnings than Sterling Infrastructure. Sterling Infrastructure is trading at a higher price-to-earnings ratio than its competitors, indicating that it is currently more expensive than other companies in its industry.

Profitability

This table compares Sterling Infrastructure and its competitors’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Sterling Infrastructure	12.85%	45.97%	19.94%
Sterling Infrastructure Competitors	-3.91%	2.79%	3.83%

Institutional and Insider Ownership

80.9% of Sterling Infrastructure shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 48.9% of shares of all “Construction & Engineering” companies are owned by institutional investors. 1.6% of Sterling Infrastructure shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 20.9% of shares of all “Construction & Engineering” companies are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Risk and Volatility

Sterling Infrastructure has a beta of 1.97, meaning that its share price is 97% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Sterling Infrastructure’s competitors have a beta of 1.60, meaning that their average share price is 60% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Sterling Infrastructure beats its competitors on 9 of the 13 factors compared.

Sterling Infrastructure Company Profile

Sterling Infrastructure, Inc. engages in the provision of e-infrastructure, transportation, and building solutions primarily in the United States. It operates through three segments: E-Infrastructure Solutions, Transportation Solutions, and Building Solutions. The E-Infrastructure Solutions segment provides site development services for the blue-chip end users in the e-commerce distribution center, data center, manufacturing, warehousing, and power generation sectors. The Transportation Solutions segment is involved in the development of infrastructure and rehabilitation projects for highways, roads, bridges, airports, ports, rail, and storm drainage systems for the departments of transportation in various states, regional transit authorities, airport authorities, port authorities, water authorities, and railroads. The Building Solutions segment provides residential and commercial concrete foundations for single-family and multi-family homes, parking structures, elevated slabs, other concrete work for developers and general contractors, as well as provides plumbing services for residential builds. The company was formerly known as Sterling Construction Company, Inc. and changed its name to Sterling Infrastructure, Inc. in June 2022. Sterling Infrastructure, Inc. was founded in 1955 and is headquartered in The Woodlands, Texas.