Ashland (NYSE:ASH) & Westaim (OTCMKTS:WEDXF) Head to Head Analysis

Ashland (NYSE:ASH) and Westaim (OTCMKTS:WEDXF) are both basic materials companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, analyst recommendations, valuation, institutional ownership, risk, earnings and dividends.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for Ashland and Westaim, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Ashland	2	3	6	0	2.36
Westaim	0	0	0	0	0.00

Ashland presently has a consensus target price of $62.67, suggesting a potential downside of 6.09%. Given Ashland’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Ashland is more favorable than Westaim.

Volatility & Risk

Ashland has a beta of 0.41, suggesting that its share price is 59% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Westaim has a beta of 0.21, suggesting that its share price is 79% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Ashland and Westaim”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Ashland	$1.82 billion	1.68	-$845.00 million	($15.42)	-4.33
Westaim	$53.37 million	9.84	-$38.00 million	($1.92)	-8.22

Westaim has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Ashland. Westaim is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Ashland, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Ashland and Westaim’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Ashland	-39.03%	8.06%	3.33%
Westaim	-108.56%	-9.68%	-7.67%

Institutional & Insider Ownership

94.0% of Ashland shares are held by institutional investors. 1.3% of Ashland shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 4.2% of Westaim shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Ashland beats Westaim on 10 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Ashland

Ashland Inc. provides additives and specialty ingredients in the North and Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and internationally. It operates through Life Sciences, Personal Care, Specialty Additives, and Intermediates segments. The Life Sciences segment offers pharmaceutical solutions, including controlled release polymers, disintegrants, tablet coatings, thickeners, solubilizers, and tablet binders; nutrition solutions, such as thickeners, stabilizers, emulsifiers, and additives; and nutraceutical solutions comprising products for weight management, joint comfort, stomach and intestinal health, sports nutrition, and general wellness, as well as custom formulation, toll processing, and particle engineering solutions. Its Personal Care segment provides a range of nature-based, biodegradable, and performance ingredients; solutions for toothpastes, mouth washes and rinses, denture cleaning, and care for teeth; and household supplies nature-derived rheology ingredients, biodegradable surface wetting agents, performance encapsulates, and specialty polymers. The Specialty Additives segment offers rheology modifiers, foam control agents, surfactants and wetting agents, pH neutralizers, advanced ceramics used in catalytic converters, environmental filters, ingredients for the manufacturing of ceramic capacitors, plasma display panels and solar cells, ingredients for textile printing, thermoplastic metals, and alloys for welding. Its Intermediates segment produces 1,4 butanediol and related derivatives, including n-methylpyrrolidone. It offers its products to customers in a range of consumer and industrial markets, such as architectural coatings, construction, energy, food and beverage, nutraceuticals, personal care, and pharmaceutical. The company was formerly known as Ashland Global Holdings Inc. and changed its name to Ashland Inc. in August 2022. Ashland Inc. was founded in 1924 and is headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware.

About Westaim

The Westaim Corporation is a private equity firm specializing in direct and indirect investments through acquisitions, joint ventures, secondary investments both direct and indirect, fund of fund investments, and other arrangements. For direct investments, the firm invests in early venture, mid venture, late venture, middle market, later stage, mature, emerging growth, PIPEs, and buyout transactions. For fund of fund investments, it seeks to invest in private equity funds, venture capital funds, and hedge funds. The firm seeks to provide long term capital to businesses operating in the global financial services industry. It typically acquires controlling interests in businesses. The firm seeks to acquire debt, equity, or derivative securities of both public and private companies. It invests with the objective of providing its shareholders with capital appreciation and real wealth preservation. The firm seeks to provide its portfolio companies with advisory services including, but not limited to, advice on capital allocation, financing strategy, performance measurement and merger and acquisition support. It also seeks to partner with like-minded providers of third party capital to help supplement the firm's own capital, when completing acquisitions. The firm generally seeks to hold its investments for seven to 15 years. The Westaim Corporation was founded in 1996 and is based in Toronto, Canada.