Critical Contrast: Trinseo (NYSE:TSE) vs. 5N Plus (OTCMKTS:FPLSF)

5N Plus (OTCMKTS:FPLSF) and Trinseo (NYSE:TSE) are both small-cap materials companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their valuation, earnings, profitability, analyst recommendations, risk, institutional ownership and dividends.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and price targets for 5N Plus and Trinseo, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
5N Plus	0	1	2	1	3.00
Trinseo	1	2	0	0	1.67

Trinseo has a consensus price target of $1.00, suggesting a potential upside of 334.78%. Given Trinseo’s higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Trinseo is more favorable than 5N Plus.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares 5N Plus and Trinseo”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
5N Plus	$391.06 million	4.83	$50.57 million	$0.70	29.98
Trinseo	$3.13 billion	0.00	-$348.50 million	($11.55)	-0.02

5N Plus has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Trinseo. Trinseo is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than 5N Plus, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Volatility & Risk

5N Plus has a beta of 1.88, meaning that its share price is 88% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Trinseo has a beta of 1.46, meaning that its share price is 46% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares 5N Plus and Trinseo’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
5N Plus	14.14%	26.36%	11.28%
Trinseo	-13.15%	N/A	-11.72%

Insider and Institutional Ownership

0.1% of 5N Plus shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 82.7% of Trinseo shares are owned by institutional investors. 3.9% of 5N Plus shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 4.5% of Trinseo shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

5N Plus beats Trinseo on 11 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About 5N Plus

5N Plus Inc. produces and sells specialty metals and chemicals in North America, Europe, and Asia. It operates through two segments, Specialty Semiconductors and Performance Materials. The company offers semiconductor compounds, semiconductor wafers, metals, epitaxial semiconductor substrates, and solar cells. It also provides active pharmaceutical ingredients, animal feed additives, specialized chemicals, commercial grade metals, alloys, engineered powders, and recycling services. The company serves renewable energy, security, space, pharmaceutical, medical imaging, manufacturing, electronic, consumer, and industrial application markets. 5N Plus Inc. is headquartered in Montreal, Canada.

About Trinseo

Trinseo PLC operates as a specialty material solutions provider in the United States, Europe, the Asia-Pacific, and internationally. It operates through five segments: Engineered Materials, Latex Binders, Plastics Solutions, Polystyrene, and Americas Styrenics. The Engineered Materials segment offers rigid thermoplastic compounds and blends, soft thermoplastic, continuous cast, cell cast, activated methyl methacrylates (MMA), PMMA resins, and extruded PMMA sheets and resins for consumer electronics, medical, footwear, automotive, and building and construction applications under the EMERGE, CALIBRE, PLEXIGLAS, ALTUGLAS, ACRYSPA, AVONITE, STUDIO, MEGOL, APILON, APIGO, and APINAT brands. The Latex Binders segment provides styrene-butadiene latex, and other latex polymers and binders primarily for coated paper and packaging board, carpet, and artificial turf backings, as well as the adhesive, building and construction, and technical textile paper market. The Plastics Solutions segment offers acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene, styrene-acrylonitrile, polycarbonate, and compounds and blends for automotive and other applications under the MAGNUM brand. The Polystyrene segment provides general purpose polystyrenes and high impact polystyrene for use in appliances, food packaging and food service disposables, consumer electronics, and building and construction materials under the STYRON brand. The Americas Styrenics segment provides styrene and polystyrene for appliances, food packaging, food service disposables, consumer electronics, and building and construction materials applications. Trinseo PLC was incorporated in 2015 and is headquartered in Wayne, Pennsylvania.