Sterling Infrastructure (STRL) versus The Competition Critical Analysis

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

Profitability

This table compares Sterling Infrastructure and its peers’ 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	-4.03%	2.63%	3.80%

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Sterling Infrastructure and its peers gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Sterling Infrastructure	$2.49 billion	$290.15 million	14.19
Sterling Infrastructure Competitors	$9.57 billion	$456.60 million	-5,802.22

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

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings and price targets for Sterling Infrastructure and its peers, 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	849	3464	7352	362	2.60

Sterling Infrastructure presently has a consensus price target of $729.83, suggesting a potential upside of 188.68%. As a group, “Construction & Engineering” companies have a potential upside of 47.47%. Given Sterling Infrastructure’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities analysts clearly believe Sterling Infrastructure is more favorable than its peers.

Institutional & 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 large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Volatility & Risk

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

Summary

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

About Sterling Infrastructure

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.