MedAssets (MDAS) versus Barracuda Networks (CUDA) Head to Head Comparison

MedAssets (NASDAQ: MDAS) and Barracuda Networks (NYSE:CUDA) are both technology companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, risk, earnings, valuation, profitability, analyst recommendations and dividends.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings and target prices for MedAssets and Barracuda Networks, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
MedAssets	0	0	0	0	N/A
Barracuda Networks	1	5	10	0	2.56

Barracuda Networks has a consensus price target of $26.64, indicating a potential upside of 10.97%. Given Barracuda Networks’ higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Barracuda Networks is more favorable than MedAssets.

Profitability

This table compares MedAssets and Barracuda Networks’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
MedAssets	-1.18%	-2.00%	-0.54%
Barracuda Networks	2.81%	-1,770.56%	3.79%

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares MedAssets and Barracuda Networks’ gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	EBITDA	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
MedAssets	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Barracuda Networks	$360.17 million	3.53	$36.87 million	$0.19	126.38

Barracuda Networks has higher revenue and earnings than MedAssets.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

61.6% of Barracuda Networks shares are held by institutional investors. 13.9% of Barracuda Networks shares are held 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.

Summary

Barracuda Networks beats MedAssets on 7 of the 8 factors compared between the two stocks.

MedAssets Company Profile

MedAssets, Inc. (MedAssets) provides technology-enabled products and services to healthcare organizations, including hospitals, health systems, non-acute healthcare providers, payers, other service providers and product manufacturers. The Company operates its business through two business segments: Spend and Clinical Resource Management (SCM) and Revenue Cycle Management (RCM). The SCM segment delivers market insight, performance improvement advisory and cost management capabilities to healthcare providers. The RCM segment provides revenue cycle management solutions to healthcare providers, primarily hospitals and health systems. The Company’s technology-enabled solutions are delivered through the Company-hosted software or software as a service (SaaS) or Web-based applications. Its Web-based applications employ cloud computing by using the Internet to deploy the Company’s solutions across decentralized health care organizations, providing standardization and compliance.

Barracuda Networks Company Profile

Barracuda Networks, Inc. designs and delivers security and data protection solutions. The Company offers cloud-enabled solutions that enable customers to address security threats, manage network performance, and protect and store their data. Its solutions are designed to manage information technology operations for its customers. Its security solutions include Barracuda Email Security, The Barracuda Web Security Gateway, Barracuda NextGen Firewalls, The Barracuda Web Application Firewall, The Barracuda Load Balancer ADC and The Barracuda SSL VPN. Its data protection solutions provide solutions for on-premises and cloud-based archiving and backup. Its data protection solutions include Barracuda Backup, Barracuda Message Archiver and CudaSign. Its solution suites combine its security and data protection offerings into services designed for cloud platforms and managed services environments. Its solution suites include Barracuda Essentials for Office 365 and Intronis ECHOplatform.