Analyzing Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ:VRSK) and Potash America (OTCMKTS:PTAM)

Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ:VRSK) and Potash America (OTCMKTS:PTAM) are both business services companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, valuation, risk, profitability, analyst recommendations, earnings and institutional ownership.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Verisk Analytics and Potash America’s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Verisk Analytics	$2.68 billion	12.63	$614.60 million	$5.36	44.28
Potash America	N/A	N/A	N/A	($0.03)	-0.04

Verisk Analytics has higher revenue and earnings than Potash America. Potash America is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Verisk Analytics, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings and recommmendations for Verisk Analytics and Potash America, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Verisk Analytics	0	8	6	0	2.43
Potash America	0	0	0	0	N/A

Verisk Analytics currently has a consensus price target of $252.21, indicating a potential upside of 6.27%. Given Verisk Analytics’ higher possible upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Verisk Analytics is more favorable than Potash America.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

90.0% of Verisk Analytics shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 2.9% of Potash America shares are held by institutional investors. 0.4% of Verisk Analytics shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.4% of Potash America shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares Verisk Analytics and Potash America’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Verisk Analytics	28.45%	268.19%	20.04%
Potash America	N/A	N/A	N/A

Summary

Verisk Analytics beats Potash America on 9 of the 10 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Verisk Analytics

Verisk Analytics, Inc. provides data analytics and technology solutions to the insurance markets in the United States and internationally. It offers policy language, prospective loss costs, policy writing and rating rules, and various underwriting solutions for risk selection and segmentation, pricing, and workflow optimization; property- and auto- specific rating and underwriting information solutions that allows clients to understand, quantify, underwrite, mitigate, and avoid potential loss for risks; catastrophe modeling solutions, which enables companies to identify, quantify, and plan for the financial consequences of catastrophes for use by insurers, reinsurers, intermediaries, financial institutions, and governments. The company also provides life insurance solutions for transforming current workflows in life insurance underwriting, claim insights, policy administration, unclaimed property/equity, compliance and fraud detection, and actuarial and portfolio modeling; Marketing Solutions, such as compliant, real-time decisioning, profitability, and risk assessment for inbound consumer interactions; and international underwriting and claims solutions. In addition, it offers claims insurance solutions, which provides analytics in fraud detection, compliance reporting, subrogation liability assessment, litigation, and repair cost estimation and valuation solutions; and casualty solutions, such as compliance, casualty claims decision support, and workflow automation solutions. Further, the company supplies software to the specialty insurance market. The company was founded in 1971 and is headquartered in Jersey City, New Jersey.

About Potash America

Potash America, Inc., an exploration stage company, focuses on the development of fertilizer and agri-business assets in Canada. It intends to acquire and develop potash, montmorillonite, bentonite, and gypsum assets into agri-products. The company was formerly known as Adtomize Inc. and changed its name to Potash America, Inc. in March 2011. Potash America, Inc. was founded in 2007 and is based in Boca Raton, Florida.