Clean Harbors (NYSE:CLH) vs. GFL Environmental (NYSE:GFL) Critical Comparison

GFL Environmental (NYSE:GFL) and Clean Harbors (NYSE:CLH) are both large-cap business services companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, dividends, risk, institutional ownership, valuation, profitability and analyst recommendations.

Profitability

This table compares GFL Environmental and Clean Harbors’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
GFL Environmental	50.99%	3.06%	1.21%
Clean Harbors	6.51%	14.61%	5.25%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and price targets for GFL Environmental and Clean Harbors, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
GFL Environmental	0	2	12	2	3.00
Clean Harbors	1	5	7	1	2.57

GFL Environmental presently has a consensus price target of $57.08, suggesting a potential upside of 27.17%. Clean Harbors has a consensus price target of $255.25, suggesting a potential upside of 7.72%. Given GFL Environmental’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities analysts plainly believe GFL Environmental is more favorable than Clean Harbors.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

64.7% of GFL Environmental shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 90.4% of Clean Harbors shares are owned by institutional investors. 8.7% of GFL Environmental shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 5.6% of Clean Harbors shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares GFL Environmental and Clean Harbors”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
GFL Environmental	$5.62 billion	2.90	-$527.43 million	$6.38	7.04
Clean Harbors	$5.96 billion	2.12	$402.30 million	$7.21	32.87

Clean Harbors has higher revenue and earnings than GFL Environmental. GFL Environmental is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Clean Harbors, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Volatility and Risk

GFL Environmental has a beta of 0.89, indicating that its stock price is 11% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Clean Harbors has a beta of 0.95, indicating that its stock price is 5% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Clean Harbors beats GFL Environmental on 8 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About GFL Environmental

GFL Environmental Inc. offers non-hazardous solid waste management and environmental services in Canada and the United States. It offers solid waste management, liquid waste management, and soil remediation services, including collection, transportation, transfer, recycling, and disposal services for municipal, residential, and commercial, and industrial customers. The company was incorporated in 2007 and is headquartered in Vaughan, Canada.

About Clean Harbors

Clean Harbors, Inc. provides environmental and industrial services in the United States and internationally. The company operates through two segments, Environmental Services and Safety-Kleen Sustainability Solutions. The Environmental Services segment collects, transports, treats, and disposes hazardous and non-hazardous waste, such as resource recovery, physical treatment, fuel blending, incineration, landfill disposal, wastewater treatment, lab chemicals disposal, and explosives management services; and offers CleanPack services, including collection, identification, categorization, specialized packaging, transportation, and disposal of laboratory chemicals and household hazardous waste. This segment also provides industrial maintenance and specialty industrial services; and utilizes specialty equipment and resources that performs field services. The Safety-Kleen Sustainability Solutions segment provides pickup and transportation services for hazardous and non-hazardous containerized waste for recycling or disposal; machine cleaning and maintenance, and disposal and replenishment of clean solvent or aqueous fluids; and vacuum services to remove solids, residual oily water, and sludge and other fluids from customers' oil/water separators, sumps, and collection tanks, as well as removes and collects waste fluids found at large and small industrial locations, including metal fabricators, auto maintenance providers, and general manufacturers. This segment also manufactures, formulates, packages, distributes, and markets lubricants and other automotive products. Clean Harbors, Inc. was incorporated in 1980 and is headquartered in Norwell, Massachusetts.