Head to Head Comparison: Ingram Micro (NYSE:INGM) and ePlus (NASDAQ:PLUS)

Ingram Micro (NYSE:INGM) and ePlus (NASDAQ:PLUS) are both mid-cap business services companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, profitability, dividends, risk, institutional ownership, earnings and analyst recommendations.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings and target prices for Ingram Micro and ePlus, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Ingram Micro	0	6	10	0	2.63
ePlus	0	1	0	0	2.00

Ingram Micro currently has a consensus price target of $27.86, suggesting a potential upside of 41.55%. ePlus has a consensus price target of $90.00, suggesting a potential upside of 18.51%. Given Ingram Micro’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe Ingram Micro is more favorable than ePlus.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

93.8% of ePlus shares are held by institutional investors. 2.0% of ePlus shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares Ingram Micro and ePlus’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Ingram Micro	N/A	N/A	N/A
ePlus	5.08%	11.83%	6.54%

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Ingram Micro and ePlus”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Ingram Micro	$47.66 billion	0.10	$352.71 million	N/A	N/A
ePlus	$2.12 billion	0.96	$115.78 million	$4.03	18.84

Ingram Micro has higher revenue and earnings than ePlus.

Summary

ePlus beats Ingram Micro on 6 of the 11 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Ingram Micro

Ingram Micro is a leading solutions provider by revenue for the global information technology (“IT”) ecosystem helping power the world’s leading technology brands. With our vast infrastructure and focus on client and endpoint solutions (formerly referred to as commercial & consumer, as described elsewhere in this prospectus), advanced solutions offerings and cloud-based solutions, we enable our business partners to scale and operate more efficiently in the markets they serve. We deliver customized solutions to our vendor, reseller and retailer partners, enabling them to provide excellent business outcomes to the companies and consumers they serve. Through our global reach and broad portfolio of products, professional services offerings, software, cloud and digital solutions, we remove complexity and maximize the value of the technology products our partners make, sell or use, providing the world more ways to realize the promise of technology. In the face of significant economic uncertainty and volatility in commercial markets globally, we believe that our business remains well-positioned to benefit from technology megatrends, including cloud migration, enhanced security, Internet-of-Things (“IoT”), hybrid work and 5G. As one of the world’s largest technology distributors by revenue and/or by global footprint, we have positioned Ingram Micro as an integral link in the global technology value chain, providing technology solutions and services from more than 1,500 vendor partners to a broad array of customers. With operations in 57 countries and 134 logistics and service centers worldwide, we serve as a solutions aggregator that we believe based on our experience in the industry enables us, together with our vendor partners, to reach nearly 90% of the global population with technology. Original Equipment Manufacturers (“OEMs”) and software providers rely on us to simplify global sales channels, gain operational efficiencies and address complex technology deployments. Our highly diversified base of more than 161,000 customers includes value-added resellers, system integrators, telecommunications companies and managed service providers. We provide our customers with broad product availability, technical expertise and a full suite of professional services to simplify their deployment and maximize their use of technology, including data-driven business and market insights, pre-sales engineering, post-sales integration, technical support and financing solutions. We manage more than 850 million units of technology products across more than 220,000 unique SKUs every year and handle, on average, in excess of 12,000 technical engineering calls monthly. Additionally, we provide resellers, retailers and OEMs with our IT Asset Disposition (“ITAD”) and Reverse Logistics and Repairs services to advance environmental sustainability through responsibly collecting and beneficially repurposing e-waste through remanufacturing, recycling, refurbishing and reselling technology devices. As of June 29, 2024, we had approximately 24,150 full-time associates. More than a decade ago, we embarked on a journey from being a traditional IT products distributor to creating an integrated marketplace for customized solutions. Since then, even in the midst of the recent global softening in demand for certain of our traditional offerings, including our client and endpoint solutions, we have invested more than $2 billion in technical resources, intellectual property, digital processes and systems, advanced solutions, specialty markets and professional services. From its inception, this organic evolution, aided by a number of key acquisitions, has focused on creating a one-stop-shop experience for our thousands of customers to seamlessly procure and manage a comprehensive suite of technology solutions and services. The anything-as-a-service (“XaaS”) market has now been a rapidly expanding market and a key growth driver for several years, leading to our accelerated development of highly integrated solutions, services and marketplaces. First launched in 2010, our cloud marketplace has been a transformative part of our journey, enabling leading software vendors to connect with thousands of customers, who in turn support millions of end users, in what we believe to be the world’s largest cloud ecosystem. Today, our cloud marketplace hosts more than 200 cloud solutions, aggregates 29 marketplaces and manages over 36 million seats for more than 33,000 customers. Building on our successful cloud marketplace, our proprietary CloudBlue digital commerce platform, and other acquired and organically developed intellectual property, in 2022 we launched Ingram Micro Xvantage, our fully automated, self-learning and innovative digital platform, which is now live in key countries around the globe. We believe that our customers will increasingly experience a “single pane of glass” through which we offer a full menu of IT devices, software solutions, cloud-based subscriptions, and technology services across hundreds of vendors and brands as we migrate our cloud marketplace and other marketplaces to Ingram Micro Xvantage and continuously integrate additional capabilities to the platform. Through Ingram Micro Xvantage, many tasks that previously took hours or even days, such as order status updates, price quotes and vendor catalog management activities, can now be accomplished by the platform in a few minutes, driving significant efficiency gains for our vendors, customers and associates. We believe that we offer our third-party partners the industry’s first comprehensive and streamlined distribution experience in a single integrated digital platform. Harnessing the insights gained from hundreds of millions of transactions over the past decade, Ingram Micro Xvantage is a significant milestone in our evolution benefiting from many years of investment and IT distribution experience. As our dynamic business model continues to evolve and we continue our transition to becoming more of a platform company, we will be better able to adapt to customer demands in the constantly shifting IT landscape. Our focus on successful business outcomes for our partners and their clients, together with the investments described above, have enabled us to deliver solid financial results and expand our advanced solutions and cloud businesses even in the midst of the recent global softening in demand for certain of our traditional offerings, including our client and endpoint solutions. Advanced Solutions generated net sales of $7,329 million for the Predecessor 2021 Period, $8,309 million for the Successor 2021 Period, $17,354 million for Fiscal Year 2022 (Successor), $17,883.3 million for Fiscal Year 2023 (Successor) and $8,164.9 million for the Unaudited 2024 Interim Period (Successor). Cloud generated net sales of $125.9 million for the Predecessor 2021 Period, $161.7 million for the Successor 2021 Period, $326.0 million for Fiscal Year 2022 (Successor), $383.3 million for Fiscal Year 2023 (Successor) and $226.1 million for the Unaudited 2024 Interim Period (Successor). Our business was founded in 1979 as Micro D Inc. Ingram Micro Holding Corporation (formerly known as Imola Holding Corporation) was incorporated on September 28, 2020 to serve as a holding company in connection with the Imola Mergers. Ingram Micro Holding Corporation had immaterial operations from September 28, 2020 to the Acquisition Closing Date. Our principal offices are located at 3351 Michelson Drive, Suite 100, Irvine, CA.

About ePlus

ePlus inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides information technology (IT) solutions that enable organizations to optimize their IT environment and supply chain processes in the United States and internationally. It operates through two segments, Technology and Financing. The Technology segment offers hardware, perpetual and subscription software, maintenance, software assurance, and internally provided and outsourced services; managed services or infrastructure and cloud; and enhanced maintenance support, service desk, storage-as-a-service, cloud hosted and managed, and managed security services; and professional, staff augmentation, cloud consulting, consulting, and security services. The Financing segment engages in financing arrangements, such as sales-type and operating leases; loans and consumption-based financing arrangements; and underwriting, management, and disposal of IT equipment and assets. Its financing operations comprise sales, pricing, credit, contracts, accounting, and risk and asset management. This segment primarily finances IT, communication-related, and medical equipment; and industrial machinery and equipment, office furniture and general office equipment, transportation equipment, and other general business equipment directly, as well as through vendors. The company serves commercial entities, state and local governments, government contractors, healthcare, and educational institutions. The company was formerly known as MLC Holdings, Inc. and changed its name to ePlus inc. in 1999. ePlus inc. was founded in 1990 and is headquartered in Herndon, Virginia.