Reviewing ACI Worldwide (NASDAQ:ACIW) and Elcom International (OTCMKTS:ELCO)

Elcom International (OTCMKTS:ELCO) and ACI Worldwide (NASDAQ:ACIW) are both computer and technology companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, dividends, institutional ownership, earnings, analyst recommendations, risk and valuation.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

94.7% of ACI Worldwide shares are held by institutional investors. 13.6% of Elcom International shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 1.1% of ACI Worldwide shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Volatility & Risk

Elcom International has a beta of -0.12, suggesting that its stock price is 112% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, ACI Worldwide has a beta of 1, suggesting that its stock price has a similar volatility profile to the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings and recommmendations for Elcom International and ACI Worldwide, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Elcom International	0	0	0	0	0.00
ACI Worldwide	0	2	2	0	2.50

ACI Worldwide has a consensus target price of $60.00, indicating a potential upside of 41.64%. Given ACI Worldwide’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe ACI Worldwide is more favorable than Elcom International.

Profitability

This table compares Elcom International and ACI Worldwide’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Elcom International	N/A	N/A	N/A
ACI Worldwide	11.51%	16.76%	7.89%

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Elcom International and ACI Worldwide”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Elcom International	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
ACI Worldwide	$1.76 billion	2.45	$226.66 million	$1.99	21.29

ACI Worldwide has higher revenue and earnings than Elcom International.

Summary

ACI Worldwide beats Elcom International on 9 of the 10 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Elcom International

Elcom International Inc. provides cloud based e-procurement solutions worldwide. It offers Procure to Pay solutions to publish and manage supplier content, connect to buyers, and analyze spend and procurement processes; eInvoicing solutions to send and receive eInvoices with supplier adoption guaranteed; and sourcing functions to investigate potential suppliers on a local and global basis. The company also provides services for buyers, including catalog processing, development of punchout catalogs, and to integrate Elcom’s PECOS solution into existing purchasing processes; and services for suppliers, such as onboarding of new suppliers to utilize the solution, access to demand generating activities, and to access information and bids that relate to products and services. It offers eProcurement solutions for governments, educational institutions, healthcare organizations, private enterprises, buying groups. Elcom International Inc. was founded in 1992 and is based in Braintree, Massachusetts.

About ACI Worldwide

ACI Worldwide, Inc., a software company, develops, markets, installs, and supports a range of software products and solutions for facilitating digital payments in the United States and internationally. The company operates in three segments: Banks, Merchants, and Billers. The company offers ACI Acquiring, a solution to process credit, debit, and prepaid card transactions, deliver digital innovation, and fraud prevention; ACI Issuing, a digital payment issuing solution for new payment offering; and ACI Enterprise Payments Platform that provides payment processing and orchestration capabilities for digital payments. It also provides ACI Low Value Real-Time Payments, a platform for processing real-time payments; and ACI High Value Real-Time Payments, a payments engine that offers multi-bank, multi-currency, 24×7 payment processing, and SWIFT messaging. In addition, the company offers ACI Payments Orchestration Platform for optimizing payments; omni-channel payment platform; ACI Fraud Management, a real-time approach to fraud management; and ACI Speedpay, an integrated suite of digital billing, payment, disbursement, and communication services. The company offers electronic bill presentment and payment services to consumer finance, insurance, healthcare, higher education, utility, government, telecommunications, and mortgage sectors; implementation services, include product installations and configurations, and custom software modifications; and business and technical consultancy, on-site support, product education, and testing services, as well as distributes or acts as a sales agent for software developed by third parties. It markets its products under the ACI Worldwide brand. The company was formerly known as Transaction Systems Architects, Inc. and changed its name to ACI Worldwide, Inc. in July 2007. The company was founded in 1975 and is based in Elkhorn, Nebraska.