First Advantage Corporation (FA)
Industrials · NMS · US
Fundamentals
Valuation and ratings
First Advantage Corporation trades at USD22.31, which is 62% above the USD8.47 our discounted cash flow model puts on the business. On that measure it screens as expensive, which is not the same as saying it will fall.
Our moat model scores it 34 out of 100, which is little in the way of a moat. A moat is a structural reason competitors cannot take the profits away, and it matters more to a long holding period than any single quarter's numbers do.
It changes hands at 423.4 times earnings. Be careful reading that in isolation: for a cyclical business a low P/E arrives at the top of the cycle, when profits are peaking and about to fall, which is exactly when the shares look cheapest and are not.
About First Advantage Corporation
First Advantage Corporation provides employment background screening, digital identity, and verification solutions internationally. It offers pre-onboarding products and solutions, such as criminal background checks, drug/health screening, extended workforce screening, FBI channeling, identity checks and biometric fraud mitigation tools, education/work history verification, driver records and compliance, healthcare credentials, executive screening, and other screening products. The company also provides post-onboarding solutions, including criminal records monitoring, I-9 verification, healthcare sanctions, motor vehicle records, social media screening, and global sanctions and licenses; and adjacent products comprising fleet/vehicle compliance, hiring tax credits and incentives, and investigative research. Its products and solutions are used by executive management, human resources, talent acquisition, risk, compliance, vendor management, safety, global enterprises, mid-sized, and small companies. The company was formerly known as Fastball Intermediate, Inc. and changed its name to First Advantage Corporation in March 2021. First Advantage Corporation was founded in 2002 and is based in Atlanta, Georgia.
Smart money ownership
5 of the funds we track reported a position in their latest SEC 13F filing. Largest first:
- Renaissance Technologies, RENAISSANCE TECHNOLOGIES LLC$1.29M · 0.0% of book
- Robert Olstein, Olstein Capital Management, L.P.$1.12M · 0.2% of book
- Cliff Asness, AQR CAPITAL MANAGEMENT LLC$597.9K · 0.0% of book
- Israel Englander, MILLENNIUM MANAGEMENT LLC$476.9K · 0.0% of book
- Joel Greenblatt, Gotham Asset Management, LLC$346.4K · 0.0% of book
A word of warning on reading these figures: a 13F reports the market value of a holding, so a fund that traded nothing at all still appears to have sold when the price fell. We found 102 companies where the standard reading gives the opposite answer. Only the share count is honest.
Common questions
Is First Advantage Corporation (FA) undervalued?
Against our discounted cash flow estimate of USD8.47, FA at USD22.31 is 62% above fair value. That is one model's answer, not a recommendation, and most of a DCF's output sits in a terminal value nobody can forecast.
Which funds own FA?
5 of the institutions we track reported a position in FA in their most recent SEC 13F filing. A 13F is filed up to 45 days after quarter end, so it tells you what a fund held then, not what it holds now.
What is FA's P/E ratio?
FA trades at 423.4 times earnings. A low P/E is not automatically cheap: on a cyclical company it is usually a warning that earnings are at a peak.
The full research page for FA, with financial statements, ownership detail, peer comparison and alerts, is free inside the app.
Data from company filings, exchange quotes and SEC EDGAR 13F disclosures. Quotes are delayed. Metrics we do not have are left out rather than estimated. Educational information, not financial advice.