Alfa Laval (OTCMKTS:ALFVY) versus Primoris Services (NYSE:PRIM) Head-To-Head Review

Primoris Services (NYSE:PRIM) and Alfa Laval (OTCMKTS:ALFVY) are both industrials companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, profitability, dividends, valuation, earnings, risk and analyst recommendations.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Primoris Services and Alfa Laval”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Primoris Services	$7.57 billion	0.56	$274.90 million	$2.55	31.01
Alfa Laval	$7.12 billion	3.25	$845.40 million	$2.11	26.56

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

Institutional & Insider Ownership

91.8% of Primoris Services shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 0.0% of Alfa Laval shares are held by institutional investors. 1.1% of Primoris Services shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current recommendations for Primoris Services and Alfa Laval, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Primoris Services	0	7	10	0	2.59
Alfa Laval	1	3	4	0	2.38

Primoris Services currently has a consensus price target of $127.60, suggesting a potential upside of 61.35%. Given Primoris Services’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, research analysts plainly believe Primoris Services is more favorable than Alfa Laval.

Dividends

Primoris Services pays an annual dividend of $0.32 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.4%. Alfa Laval pays an annual dividend of $0.60 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.1%. Primoris Services pays out 12.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Alfa Laval pays out 28.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. Primoris Services has raised its dividend for 1 consecutive years.

Volatility and Risk

Primoris Services has a beta of 1.44, meaning that its share price is 44% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Alfa Laval has a beta of 1.12, meaning that its share price is 12% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

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

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Primoris Services	1.92%	9.96%	3.67%
Alfa Laval	11.63%	18.41%	8.16%

Summary

Primoris Services beats Alfa Laval on 11 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Primoris Services

Primoris Services Corporation, a specialty contractor company, provides a range of construction, fabrication, maintenance, replacement, and engineering services in the United States and Canada. It operates through three segments: Utilities, Energy/Renewables, and Pipeline Services. The Utilities segment offers installation and maintenance services for new and existing natural gas distribution systems, electric utility distribution and transmission systems, and communications systems. The Energy/Renewables segment provides a range of services, including engineering, procurement, and construction, as well as retrofits, highway and bridge construction, demolition, site work, soil stabilization, mass excavation, flood control, upgrades, repairs, outages, and maintenance services to renewable energy and energy storage, renewable fuels, petroleum, refining, and petrochemical industries, as well as state departments of transportation. The Pipeline Services segment offers a range of services comprising pipeline construction, maintenance, facility, and integrity services; installation of compressor and pump stations; and metering facilities for entities in the petroleum and petrochemical industries, as well as gas, water, and sewer utilities. The company was founded in 1960 and is headquartered in Dallas, Texas.

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.