Financial Comparison: FMC (NYSE:FMC) and Element Solutions (NYSE:ESI)

FMC (NYSE:FMC) and Element Solutions (NYSE:ESI) are both materials companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, profitability, earnings, valuation, risk and dividends.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares FMC and Element Solutions”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
FMC	$3.25 billion	0.44	-$2.24 billion	($22.00)	-0.52
Element Solutions	$3.15 billion	2.65	$190.80 million	$0.74	46.35

Element Solutions has lower revenue, but higher earnings than FMC. FMC is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Element Solutions, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for FMC and Element Solutions, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
FMC	3	7	4	0	2.07
Element Solutions	0	2	7	4	3.15

FMC currently has a consensus target price of $14.38, indicating a potential upside of 26.37%. Element Solutions has a consensus target price of $46.70, indicating a potential upside of 36.17%. Given Element Solutions’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Element Solutions is more favorable than FMC.

Dividends

FMC pays an annual dividend of $0.32 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.8%. Element Solutions pays an annual dividend of $0.32 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.9%. FMC pays out -1.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Element Solutions pays out 43.2% 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. FMC is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

91.9% of FMC shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 92.3% of Element Solutions shares are held by institutional investors. 0.8% of FMC shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 6.2% of Element Solutions shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares FMC and Element Solutions’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
FMC	-84.83%	11.35%	2.65%
Element Solutions	5.67%	14.88%	7.51%

Volatility and Risk

FMC has a beta of 0.41, meaning that its stock price is 59% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Element Solutions has a beta of 1.26, meaning that its stock price is 26% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Element Solutions beats FMC on 14 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About FMC

FMC Corporation, an agricultural sciences company, provides crop protection, plant health, and professional pest and turf management products. It develops, markets, and sells crop protection chemicals that includes insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides; and biologicals, crop nutrition, and seed treatment products, which are used in agriculture to enhance crop yield and quality by controlling a range of insects, weeds, and diseases, as well as in non-agricultural markets for pest control. The company markets its products through its own sales organization and through alliance partners, independent distributors, and sales representatives. It operates in North America, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. The company was founded in 1883 and is headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

About Element Solutions

Element Solutions Inc operates as a specialty chemicals company in the United States, China, and internationally. The company operates in two segments, Electronics, and Industrial & Specialty. The Electronics segment researches, formulates, and sells specialty chemicals and materials for various types of electronics hardware products. This segment also supplies surface mount technologies, fluxes, thermal management material, coatings, and other attachment materials; chemical formulations to the electronics industry; and advanced copper interconnects, die attachment, sintered silver material, adhesives, wafer bump processes, and photomask technologies for semiconductor industry. It primarily serves mobile communications, computers, automobiles, and aerospace equipment industries. The Industrial & Specialty segment provides industrial solutions, which include chemical systems that protect and decorate metal and plastic surfaces; consumable chemicals that enable printing image transfer on flexible packaging materials; and chemistries used in water-based hydraulic control fluids for offshore energy production applications. It serves aerospace, automotive, construction, consumer electronics, consumer packaged goods, and oil and gas production end markets. The company was formerly known as Platform Specialty Products Corporation and changed its name to Element Solutions Inc in January 2019. Element Solutions Inc was founded in 1785 and is headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.