Alight (NYSE:ALIT) & Perfect (NYSE:PERF) Critical Contrast

Perfect (NYSE:PERF) and Alight (NYSE:ALIT) are both small-cap computer and technology companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, dividends, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, valuation, risk and earnings.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent recommendations for Perfect and Alight, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Perfect	1	1	0	0	1.50
Alight	2	3	3	0	2.13

Alight has a consensus target price of $3.56, suggesting a potential upside of 515.42%. Given Alight’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Alight is more favorable than Perfect.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

96.7% of Alight shares are owned by institutional investors. 44.7% of Perfect shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.9% of Alight shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Perfect and Alight”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Perfect	$69.15 million	2.40	$4.64 million	$0.05	32.60
Alight	$2.26 billion	0.14	-$3.10 billion	($5.88)	-0.10

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

Profitability

This table compares Perfect and Alight’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Perfect	6.71%	2.42%	1.92%
Alight	-136.91%	9.61%	4.03%

Risk and Volatility

Perfect has a beta of 0.3, indicating that its stock price is 70% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Alight has a beta of 1.3, indicating that its stock price is 30% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Alight beats Perfect on 8 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Perfect

Perfect Corp. is a software as a service technology company, which engages in the business of developing makeup virtual try-on solutions. Its solutions include virtual try-ons for makeup, nail art, hairstyles, beard dye and styling, eyewear, jewelry, advanced skin diagnostic technology, foundation shade finder, and interactive artificial reality makeup application tutorial platform. Its brands include Estée Lauder, Clinique, MAC, e.l.e., benefit, Sally Hansen, Belcorp, Decorté, NARS, Aveda, Madisonreed, kate, Sofina iP, Jillstuart, Cosnova, Beekman, Marianna, Ardell, tarte, and Coffret D’or. It operates through the following geographical segments: United States, Japan, France, and Others. The company was founded by Alice H. Chang on February 13, 2015 and is headquartered in New Taipei, Taiwan.

About Alight

Alight, Inc. provides cloud-based integrated digital human capital and business solutions worldwide. The company operates through two segments, Employer Solutions and Professional Services. The Employer Solutions segment offers employee wellbeing, integrated benefits administration, healthcare navigation, financial wellbeing, leave of absence management, retiree healthcare and payroll; and operates AI-led capabilities software. The Professional Services segment offers consulting offerings, such as cloud advisory, deployment, and optimization services for cloud platforms. The company provides Alight Worklife, an intuitive, cloud-based employee engagement platform. Its solutions enable employees to enrich their health, wealth, and wellbeing that helps organizations achieve a high-performance culture. Alight, Inc. was founded in 2020 and is based in Lincolnshire, Illinois.