Head-To-Head Analysis: Gencor Industries (NASDAQ:GENC) & Albany International (NYSE:AIN)

Gencor Industries (NASDAQ:GENC) and Albany International (NYSE:AIN) are both small-cap industrials companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, profitability, dividends, analyst recommendations, valuation, risk and institutional ownership.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current recommendations and price targets for Gencor Industries and Albany International, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Gencor Industries	0	1	1	1	3.00
Albany International	1	4	0	0	1.80

Gencor Industries currently has a consensus target price of $19.30, indicating a potential upside of 11.24%. Albany International has a consensus target price of $61.00, indicating a potential upside of 3.17%. Given Gencor Industries’ stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Gencor Industries is more favorable than Albany International.

Risk and Volatility

Gencor Industries has a beta of 0.54, suggesting that its share price is 46% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Albany International has a beta of 1.16, suggesting that its share price is 16% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

97.4% of Albany International shares are owned by institutional investors. 30.4% of Gencor Industries shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.6% of Albany International shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares Gencor Industries and Albany International’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Gencor Industries	14.33%	8.60%	8.01%
Albany International	-4.18%	10.76%	4.64%

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Gencor Industries and Albany International”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Gencor Industries	$110.01 million	2.31	$14.67 million	$1.16	14.96
Albany International	$1.18 billion	1.42	-$57.34 million	($1.74)	-33.98

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

Summary

Gencor Industries beats Albany International on 11 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Gencor Industries

Gencor Industries, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, designs, manufactures, and sells heavy machinery used in the production of highway construction materials and environmental control equipment. It offers hot-mix asphalt plants to produce asphalt paving materials; related asphalt plant equipment, including hot-mix storage silos, fabric filtration systems, cold feed bins, and other plant components; and a range of mobile batch plants. The company also provides combustion systems that transform solid, liquid, or gaseous fuels into usable energy, or burn multiple fuels in asphalt and aggregate drying industries; and combustion systems for rotary dryers, kilns, fume and liquid incinerators, and fuel heaters, as well as industrial incinerators. In addition, it offers thermal fluid heat transfer systems that transfer heat for storage, heating, and pumping viscous materials, such as asphalt, chemicals, heavy oils, etc. in various industrial and petrochemical applications; specialty storage tanks for various industrial uses; and asphalt pavers under the Blaw-Knox brand. The company sells its products primarily to the highway construction industry through its sales representatives, and independent dealers and agents worldwide. The company was formerly known as Mechtron International Corporation and changed its name to Gencor Industries, Inc. in 1987. Gencor Industries, Inc. was founded in 1894 and is based in Orlando, Florida.

About Albany International

Albany International Corp., together with its subsidiaries, engages in the machine clothing and engineered composites businesses. The company operates in two segments, Machine Clothing (MC) and Albany Engineered Composites (AEC). The MC segment designs, manufactures, and markets paper machine clothing for use in the manufacturing of papers, paperboards, tissues, towels, pulps, nonwovens, building products, tannery, and textiles, as well as fiber cement and several other industrial applications. This segment offers paper machine clothing forming, pressing, and drying fabrics, as well as engineered processing belts; and engineered fabrics. The AEC segment 3D-woven and injected composite components for aircraft engines composite airframe and engine components for military and commercial aircraft. It operates in the United States, Switzerland, France, Brazil, China, Mexico, Germany, and internationally. The company was incorporated in 1895 and is headquartered in Rochester, New Hampshire.