Critical Comparison: CECO Environmental (NASDAQ:CECO) versus Kone Oyj (OTCMKTS:KNYJY)

Kone Oyj (OTCMKTS:KNYJY) and CECO Environmental (NASDAQ:CECO) are both industrials companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, analyst recommendations, risk, valuation, institutional ownership, profitability and dividends.

Risk and Volatility

Kone Oyj has a beta of 0.59, meaning that its stock price is 41% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, CECO Environmental has a beta of 1.5, meaning that its stock price is 50% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Kone Oyj and CECO Environmental’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Kone Oyj	8.33%	38.87%	10.68%
CECO Environmental	-3.39%	7.36%	3.41%

Insider & Institutional Ownership

68.1% of CECO Environmental shares are owned by institutional investors. 16.9% of CECO Environmental shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings for Kone Oyj and CECO Environmental, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Kone Oyj	2	4	1	1	2.12
CECO Environmental	1	0	8	1	2.90

CECO Environmental has a consensus price target of $102.38, indicating a potential upside of 80.49%. Given CECO Environmental’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe CECO Environmental is more favorable than Kone Oyj.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Kone Oyj and CECO Environmental”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Kone Oyj	$12.72 billion	2.20	$1.11 billion	$1.06	29.16
CECO Environmental	$774.38 million	4.29	$50.05 million	($0.69)	-82.20

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

About Kone Oyj

KONE Oyj, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the elevator and escalator business worldwide. The company provides elevators, escalators, and automatic building doors. It offers maintenance services; and modernization solutions. In addition, the company offers KONE Office Flow, a connected solution that allows for personalized user experiences and touch-free access; health and well-being solutions for elevators, escalators, and doors; KONE Access, an access control system, which is integrated with elevator system and building doors; KONE Destination, a destination control system that reduce waiting and travel times; KONE infotainment, a communication channel for building tenants and visitors; and monitoring solutions that enable real-time inspection of elevators and escalators. Further, it provides people flow planning and consulting services; solutions for special buildings and large projects; cybersecurity solutions; and energy solutions for greener buildings. KONE Oyj was founded in 1908 and is based in Espoo, Finland.

About CECO Environmental

CECO Environmental Corp. provides critical solutions in industrial air quality, industrial water treatment, and energy transition solutions worldwide. It operates in two segments: Engineered Systems and Industrial Process Solutions. The company engineers, designs, manufactures, and installs non-metallic expansion joints and flow control products, including rubber expansion joints, ducting expansion joints, and industrial pinch and duck bill valves; membrane-based industrial water and wastewater treatment systems; and provides dust and fume extraction solutions comprising consultation, design, manufacturing, installation, and service, as well as water and wastewater treatment solutions. It offers engineered and configured products and solutions, including dampers and diverters, expansion joints, selective catalytic reduction systems, severe-service and industrial cyclones, dust collectors, thermal oxidizers, filtration systems, wet and dry scrubbers, separators and coalescers, water treatment packages, metallic and non-metallic pumps, industrial silencers, and fluid handling equipment, as well as plant engineering services and engineered design build fabrication services. In addition, the company offers industrial engineered noise control solutions, including custom acoustical gen-set packages, ambient air baffles, acoustical louvres, and skid enclosures; process filtration solutions for hydrocarbon and chemical processing; and energy and water conservation systems and equipment. The company markets its products and services to natural gas processors, transmission and distribution companies, refineries, power generators, industrial manufacturing, engineering and construction companies, semiconductor manufacturers, compressor manufacturers, beverage can manufacturers, metals and minerals, and electric vehicle producers. CECO Environmental Corp. was founded in 1869 and is headquartered in Dallas, Texas.