Financial Contrast: Fortive (NYSE:FTV) vs. Valmet Oyj (OTCMKTS:VOYJF)

Fortive (NYSE:FTV) and Valmet Oyj (OTCMKTS:VOYJF) are both industrials companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, valuation, dividends, profitability, earnings, analyst recommendations and risk.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

94.9% of Fortive shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 23.1% of Valmet Oyj shares are held by institutional investors. 0.7% of Fortive shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current recommendations for Fortive and Valmet Oyj, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Fortive	2	8	2	0	2.00
Valmet Oyj	0	0	0	0	0.00

Fortive presently has a consensus target price of $63.10, indicating a potential upside of 7.20%. Given Fortive’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Fortive is more favorable than Valmet Oyj.

Profitability

This table compares Fortive and Valmet Oyj’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Fortive	12.38%	15.33%	8.23%
Valmet Oyj	N/A	N/A	N/A

Dividends

Fortive pays an annual dividend of $0.24 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.4%. Valmet Oyj pays an annual dividend of $0.10 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.3%. Fortive pays out 14.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Valmet Oyj pays out -38.9% 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. Fortive has raised its dividend for 2 consecutive years. Fortive is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Fortive and Valmet Oyj”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Fortive	$4.16 billion	4.27	$579.20 million	$1.69	34.83
Valmet Oyj	N/A	N/A	N/A	($0.27)	-115.43

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

Summary

Fortive beats Valmet Oyj on 13 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Fortive

Fortive Corporation designs, develops, manufactures, and services professional and engineered products, software, and services in the United States, China, and internationally. It operates in three segments: Intelligent Operating Solutions, Precision Technologies, and Advanced Healthcare Solutions. The Intelligent Operating Solutions segment provides advanced instrumentation, software, and services, including electrical test and measurement, facility and asset lifecycle software applications, and connected worker safety and compliance solutions for manufacturing, process industries, healthcare, utilities and power, communications and electronics, and other industries. This segment markets its products and services under the ACCRUENT, FLUKE, GORDIAN, INDUSTRIAL SCIENTIFIC, INTELEX, PRUFTECHNIK, and SERVICECHANNEL brands. The Precision Technologies segment offers electrical test and measurement, sensing and material technologies for industrial, power and energy, automotive, medical equipment, food and beverage, aerospace and defense, semiconductor, and other general industries under the ANDERSON-NEGELE, GEMS, SETRA, HENGSTLER-DYNAPAR, QUALITROL, PACIFIC SCIENTIFIC, KEITHLEY, and TEKTRONIX brand names. The Advanced Healthcare Solutions segment provides critical workflow solutions comprising instrument sterilization, instrument tracking, design and manufacture of cell therapy equipment, biomedical test tools, radiation detection and safety monitoring, and end-to-end clinical productivity software and solutions under the ASP, CENSIS, CENSITRAC, EVOTECH, FLUKE BIOMEDICAL, INVETECH, LANDAUER, PROVATION, RAYSAFE, and STERRAD brands. Fortive Corporation was incorporated in 2015 and is headquartered in Everett, Washington.

About Valmet Oyj

Valmet Oyj develops and supplies process technologies, automation, and services for the pulp, paper, and energy industries in North America, South America, China, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific. The company’s Process Technologies segment offers pulping process equipment, process islands and complete pulp mills, individual board, tissue and paper machine sections, complete production lines and machine rebuilds, boiler islands, power plants, heating plants, environmental solutions, and technologies for converting biomass to fuels, chemicals, and materials. Its Automation segment offers distributed control systems, quality management systems, analyzers and measurements, industrial applications, and automation services and industrial internet solutions, as well as valves, pumps, valve controls, actuators and limit switches, valve spare parts, and services and industrial internet solutions. The company’s Services segment provides spare and process parts, workshop and roll services, fabrics, maintenance development and outsourcing, field service, process upgrades, and industrial internet solutions. It serves pulp, board and paper, energy and industrial gas, biomaterials and fuel, chemical, and mineral industries. Valmet Oyj was founded in 1750 and is headquartered in Espoo, Finland.