First Advantage Corporation (FA) vs UL Solutions Inc. (ULS)

First Advantage Corporation and UL Solutions Inc. are both Specialty Business Services companies. UL Solutions Inc. is the larger, with a market value of $13.3B against $3.4B — 3.9× the size. UL Solutions Inc. trades at the lower P/E: 26.3× against 135×. First Advantage Corporation grew revenue faster over the last twelve months: 32.9% against 6.61%. UL Solutions Inc. has the higher net margin (16.1% vs 1.51%) and the higher return on invested capital (23.6% vs 3.59%). Across the 20 metrics below, UL Solutions Inc. leads on 11 and First Advantage Corporation on 9.

Valuation

Metric FA ULS Specialty Business Services median
P/E 135.27 26.31 23.86
P/S 2.02 4.24 1.06
P/B 2.60 8.24 2.37
Price to free cash flow 17.22 30.60 16.54
EV/EBITDA 11.98 17.63 11.51
EV/Sales 3.12 4.21 1.51
Earnings yield 0.74% 3.80% 2.14%
Free cash flow yield 5.81% 3.27% 1.55%

Profitability

Metric FA ULS Specialty Business Services median
Gross margin 45.22% 50.41% 35.31%
Operating margin 10.68% 17.86% 3.43%
Net margin 1.51% 16.05% 1.67%
Free cash flow margin 11.75% 13.86% 3.28%
Return on equity 1.94% 36.96% 0.58%
Return on assets 0.66% 16.72% 0.33%
Return on invested capital 3.59% 23.62% 0.65%

Growth

Metric FA ULS Specialty Business Services median
Revenue growth (TTM) 32.89% 6.61% 6.04%
EPS growth (last fiscal year) 72.97% (1.23%) —
Revenue growth, 5-year CAGR 25.33% — 7.66%
Net income growth, 5-year CAGR 0.00% — 0.00%

Health

Metric FA ULS Specialty Business Services median
Debt to equity 1.57 0.19 0.21
Current ratio 2.53 1.42 1.62
Net debt to EBITDA 4.75 0.28 1.16

Dividend

Metric FA ULS Specialty Business Services median
Dividend yield — — 1.61%
Payout ratio 0.00 — 0.00

Size

Metric FA ULS Specialty Business Services median
Market cap 3.42b 13.29b 879.14m

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