Alfa Laval (OTCMKTS:ALFVY) & IES (NASDAQ:IESC) Financial Review

Alfa Laval (OTCMKTS:ALFVY) and IES (NASDAQ:IESC) are both large-cap industrials companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, profitability, dividends, earnings, analyst recommendations, valuation and risk.

Profitability

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

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Alfa Laval	11.63%	18.41%	8.16%
IES	11.40%	35.70%	19.68%

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Alfa Laval and IES”s top-line 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	3.34	$845.40 million	$2.11	27.31
IES	$3.99 billion	2.52	$303.06 million	$11.26	22.38

Alfa Laval has higher revenue and earnings than IES. IES is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Alfa Laval, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Risk and Volatility

Alfa Laval has a beta of 1.12, indicating that its stock price is 12% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, IES has a beta of 1.77, indicating that its stock price is 77% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent recommendations for Alfa Laval and IES, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Alfa Laval	2	2	4	0	2.25
IES	0	1	2	0	2.67

IES has a consensus target price of $334.50, indicating a potential upside of 32.76%. Given IES’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe IES is more favorable than Alfa Laval.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

0.0% of Alfa Laval shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 86.6% of IES shares are held by institutional investors. 56.4% of IES shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

IES beats Alfa Laval on 8 of the 14 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 IES

IES Holdings, Inc. engages in the design and installation of integrated electrical and technology systems, and provides infrastructure products and services in the United States. The Communications segment designs, installs, and maintains network infrastructure within data centers for co-location and managed hosting customers; corporate, educational, financial, hospitality, and healthcare buildings; e-commerce distribution centers; and high-tech manufacturing facilities. This segment also provides design and installation services for audio/visual, telephone, fire, and wireless access and intrusion alarm systems; and engages in designing/building, servicing, and maintaining data network systems. The Residential segment offers electrical installations to single-family housing and multi-family apartments; and cable television installations to residential and light commercial applications, as well as installs residential solar power for new construction and existing residences. The Infrastructure Solutions segment maintains and repairs alternating and direct current electric motors and generators, and power generating and distribution equipment; manufactures custom-engineered metal enclosed bus duct solutions used in power distribution; manufactures custom commercial and industrial generator enclosures; manufactures, re-manufactures, and repairs industrial lifting magnets; and maintains and repairs railroad main and auxiliary generators, main alternators, and traction motors. The Commercial & Industrial segment offers electrical and mechanical design, construction, and maintenance services for office buildings, manufacturing facilities, data centers, chemical plants, refineries, wind farms, solar facilities, municipal infrastructures, and health care facilities. The company was formerly known as Integrated Electrical Services, Inc. and changed its name to IES Holdings, Inc. in May 2016. IES Holdings, Inc. was incorporated in 1997 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.