Reviewing ICF International (NASDAQ:ICFI) and TaskUs (NASDAQ:TASK)

ICF International (NASDAQ:ICFI) and TaskUs (NASDAQ:TASK) are both small-cap industrials companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, dividends, institutional ownership, earnings, profitability, risk and valuation.

Volatility & Risk

ICF International has a beta of 0.52, indicating that its stock price is 48% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, TaskUs has a beta of 1.75, indicating that its stock price is 75% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

94.1% of ICF International shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 44.6% of TaskUs shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.7% of ICF International shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 31.9% of TaskUs shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent recommendations for ICF International and TaskUs, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
ICF International	0	2	2	0	2.50
TaskUs	2	4	1	1	2.12

ICF International currently has a consensus price target of $105.00, indicating a potential upside of 20.05%. TaskUs has a consensus price target of $9.60, indicating a potential upside of 17.65%. Given ICF International’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities research analysts clearly believe ICF International is more favorable than TaskUs.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares ICF International and TaskUs”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
ICF International	$1.87 billion	0.84	$91.59 million	$4.83	18.11
TaskUs	$1.18 billion	0.63	$102.28 million	$1.16	7.03

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

Profitability

This table compares ICF International and TaskUs’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
ICF International	4.86%	11.53%	5.73%
TaskUs	8.75%	27.02%	11.58%

Summary

ICF International beats TaskUs on 8 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About ICF International

ICF International, Inc. provides management, technology, and policy consulting and implementation services to government and commercial clients in the United States and internationally. The company researches critical policy, industry, stakeholder issues, trends, and behaviors; measures and evaluates results and their impact; and provides strategic planning and advisory services to its clients on how to navigate societal, business, market, business, communication, and technology challenges. It also identifies, defines, and implements policies, plans, programs, and business tools through a range of standard and customized methodologies for its clients' business context; conducts survey research; collects and analyzes various data to understand critical issues and options for its clients; and provides actionable business intelligence, as well as information and data management solutions that allow integrated and purpose-driven data usage. In addition, the company provides solutions to optimize the customer and citizen experience; modernizes IT systems; and cyber security solutions that support the range of cyber security missions and protect IT infrastructures in the face of relentless threats, as well as designs, develops, and implements technology systems and business tools that are key to its clients' mission or business performance. Further, it informs and engages its clients' constituents, customers, and employees through public relations, branding and marketing, multichannel and strategic communications, and reputation issues management. The company serves energy, environment, infrastructure, and disaster recovery; health and social programs; and security and other civilian and commercial markets. The company was formerly known as ICF Consulting Group Holdings, LLC and changed its name to ICF International, Inc. in 2006. ICF International, Inc. was founded in 1969 and is headquartered in Reston, Virginia.

About TaskUs

TaskUs, Inc. provides digital outsourcing services for companies in Philippines, the United States, India, and internationally. It offers digital customer experience that consists of omni-channel customer care services primarily delivered through non-voice digital channels; and other solutions, including experience and customer care services for new product or market launches, and customer acquisition solutions. The company also provides trust and safety solutions, such as review and disposition of user and advertiser generated visual, text, and audio content, which include removal or labeling of policy violating, and offensive or misleading content, as well as risk management, compliance, identity management, and fraud services; and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions that consist of data labeling, annotation, context relevance, and transcription services for training and tuning machine learning algorithms that enables to develop AI systems. It serves clients in various industry segments comprising e-commerce, FinTech, food delivery and ride sharing, gaming, technology, HealthTech, social media, and streaming media. The company was formerly known as TU TopCo, Inc. and changed its name to TaskUs, Inc. in December 2020. TaskUs, Inc. was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in New Braunfels, Texas.