Critical Analysis: Alfa Laval (OTCMKTS:ALFVY) and Vesuvius (OTCMKTS:CKSNY)

Alfa Laval (OTCMKTS:ALFVY) and Vesuvius (OTCMKTS:CKSNY) are both construction companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, risk, earnings, dividends, institutional ownership, profitability and valuation.

Dividends

Alfa Laval pays an annual dividend of $0.60 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.1%. Vesuvius pays an annual dividend of $0.08 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.4%. Alfa Laval pays out 28.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Alfa Laval and Vesuvius”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Alfa Laval	$7.12 billion	3.24	$845.40 million	$2.09	26.75
Vesuvius	$2.39 billion	0.60	$68.84 million	N/A	N/A

Alfa Laval has higher revenue and earnings than Vesuvius.

Volatility and Risk

Alfa Laval has a beta of 1.18, indicating that its stock price is 18% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Vesuvius has a beta of -0.27, indicating that its stock price is 127% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Alfa Laval and Vesuvius’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Alfa Laval	11.83%	18.93%	8.43%
Vesuvius	N/A	N/A	N/A

Institutional & Insider Ownership

0.0% of Alfa Laval shares are held by institutional investors. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current recommendations and price targets for Alfa Laval and Vesuvius, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Alfa Laval	1	4	3	0	2.25
Vesuvius	0	0	0	0	0.00

Summary

Alfa Laval beats Vesuvius on 10 of the 12 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Alfa Laval

Alfa Laval Corporate AB provides heat transfer, separation, and fluid handling products and solutions worldwide. It operates in three divisions: Energy, Food & Water, and Marine. The company offers oil/gas-fired steam and composite steam boilers, exhaust gas economizer, and ballast water treatment systems, and exhaust gas cleaning products. It also provides sensing and control, cleaning validation, condition monitoring, agitators, tank, powder mixers, fittings, and tubes, as well as wall mounted cleaning nozzles, rotary jet and heads; and tank accessories and covers. In addition, the company offers centrifugal, rotary lobe, three screw, twin screw, and circumferential piston pumps. Further, it provides butterfly, control and check, double seal, diaphragm, double seat, regulating, safety, sampling, shutter, single seat, and ball valves. Additionally, the company offers heat exchanger, tube-in-tube heat exchangers, and process shell-and-tube heat exchangers. Furthermore, it provides finned tube air heat, scraped surface heat exchangers, and various plate heat exchangers, wet surface, and HYAC hybrid air coolers. The company also offers decanters and separator related products. It serves energy, utilities, home, personal care, food, dairy, beverage, marine, transportation, pharmaceutical, biotech, water, and wastewater industries. Alfa Laval Corporate AB was founded in 1883 and is headquartered in Lund, Sweden.

About Vesuvius

Vesuvius plc is engaged in molten metal flow engineering, principally serving the steel and foundry industries. It develops and manufactures high-technology products and solutions for supply to the steel and casting industries. The Company operates through two segments: Steel and Foundry. The Steel division consists of various product lines, such as Steel Flow Control, Advanced Refractories and Technical Services. Its solution is a fully integrated robotic spray application system with a coupled mixing and laser setting system for the accurate location of the tundish furniture and mix preparation. The automatic robotic mixing and application system is fully contained and shielded with automatic shutdown if someone enters the working zone inside the tundish stand. Its technology allows robots to handle various tasks, such as manipulating steel samplers and temperature or hydrogen sensors, and to distribute powder into the tundish.