Babcock (NYSE:BW) & Nextpower (NASDAQ:NXT) Head-To-Head Survey

Babcock (NYSE:BW) and Nextpower (NASDAQ:NXT) are both industrials companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, risk, profitability, dividends, analyst recommendations, valuation and institutional ownership.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

83.2% of Babcock shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 67.4% of Nextpower shares are held by institutional investors. 2.8% of Babcock shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.8% of Nextpower shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and price targets for Babcock and Nextpower, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Babcock	1	2	4	0	2.43
Nextpower	0	4	23	1	2.89

Babcock presently has a consensus target price of $15.40, indicating a potential upside of 178.73%. Nextpower has a consensus target price of $142.77, indicating a potential upside of 67.61%. Given Babcock’s higher possible upside, research analysts clearly believe Babcock is more favorable than Nextpower.

Risk & Volatility

Babcock has a beta of 1.17, meaning that its share price is 17% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Nextpower has a beta of 1.94, meaning that its share price is 94% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Babcock and Nextpower”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Babcock	$587.70 million	1.40	-$36.16 million	($0.18)	-30.69
Nextpower	$3.56 billion	3.63	$585.88 million	$3.86	22.07

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

Profitability

This table compares Babcock and Nextpower’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Babcock	-2.17%	-4.51%	0.70%
Nextpower	16.36%	26.29%	15.02%

Summary

Nextpower beats Babcock on 12 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Babcock

Babcock & Wilcox Enterprises, Inc. engages in the provision of fossil and renewable power generation and environmental equipment. It operates through the following segments: B&W Renewable, B&W Environmental, and B&W Thermal. The B&W Renewable segment supports a circular economy, diverting waste from landfills to use for power generation and replacing fossil fuels, while recovering metals and reducing emissions. The B&W Environmental segment focuses on systems for cooling, ash handling, particulate control, nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxides removal, chemical looping for carbon control, and mercury control. The B&W Thermal segment offers steam generation equipment, aftermarket parts, construction, maintenance, and field services for plants in the power generation, oil and gas, and industrial sectors. The company was founded by George H. Babcock, Stephen Wilcox, Jr., and Joseph P. Manton in 1856 and is headquartered in Akron, OH.

About Nextpower

Nextpower, formerly known as Nextracker, an energy solutions company, provides solar trackers and software solutions for utility-scale and distributed generation solar projects in the United States and internationally. The company offers tracking solutions, which includes NX Horizon, a solar tracking solution; and NX Horizon-XTR, a terrain-following tracker designed to expand the addressable market for trackers on sites with sloped, uneven, and challenging terrain. It also provides TrueCapture, a self-adjusting tracker control system, which boosts solar power plant production by optimizing the position of individual tracker row in response to site features, such as varying topography and changing weather conditions; and NX Navigator, that assists solar power plant owners and operators in monitoring, controlling, and protecting their solar projects. The company was founded in 2013 and is headquartered in Fremont, California. As of March 31, 2024 Nextracker Inc. (Nextpower) was formerly a subsidiary of Flex Ltd.