Financial Survey: Clean Harbors (NYSE:CLH) versus GFL Environmental (NYSE:GFL)

GFL Environmental (NYSE:GFL) and Clean Harbors (NYSE:CLH) are both large-cap business services companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, dividends, profitability, earnings, analyst recommendations, risk and valuation.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

64.7% of GFL Environmental shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 90.4% of Clean Harbors shares are held by institutional investors. 8.7% of GFL Environmental shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 5.6% of Clean Harbors shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares GFL Environmental and Clean Harbors”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
GFL Environmental	$8.22 billion	1.93	-$527.43 million	$6.38	6.86
Clean Harbors	$5.96 billion	1.86	$402.30 million	$7.21	28.80

Clean Harbors has lower revenue, but higher earnings than GFL Environmental. GFL Environmental is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Clean Harbors, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Risk & Volatility

GFL Environmental has a beta of 1.14, indicating that its share price is 14% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Clean Harbors has a beta of 1.16, indicating that its share price is 16% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current recommendations and price targets for GFL Environmental and Clean Harbors, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
GFL Environmental	0	1	11	2	3.07
Clean Harbors	1	4	7	1	2.62

GFL Environmental presently has a consensus target price of $57.97, suggesting a potential upside of 32.42%. Clean Harbors has a consensus target price of $257.73, suggesting a potential upside of 24.12%. Given GFL Environmental’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe GFL Environmental is more favorable than Clean Harbors.

Profitability

This table compares GFL Environmental and Clean Harbors’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
GFL Environmental	50.99%	3.06%	1.21%
Clean Harbors	6.51%	14.61%	5.25%

Summary

GFL Environmental beats Clean Harbors on 8 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About GFL Environmental

GFL Environmental Inc. offers non-hazardous solid waste management and environmental services in Canada and the United States. It offers solid waste management, liquid waste management, and soil remediation services, including collection, transportation, transfer, recycling, and disposal services for municipal, residential, and commercial, and industrial customers. The company was incorporated in 2007 and is headquartered in Vaughan, Canada.

About Clean Harbors

Clean Harbors, Inc. provides environmental and industrial services in the United States and internationally. The company operates through two segments, Environmental Services and Safety-Kleen Sustainability Solutions. The Environmental Services segment collects, transports, treats, and disposes hazardous and non-hazardous waste, such as resource recovery, physical treatment, fuel blending, incineration, landfill disposal, wastewater treatment, lab chemicals disposal, and explosives management services; and offers CleanPack services, including collection, identification, categorization, specialized packaging, transportation, and disposal of laboratory chemicals and household hazardous waste. This segment also provides industrial maintenance and specialty industrial services; and utilizes specialty equipment and resources that performs field services. The Safety-Kleen Sustainability Solutions segment provides pickup and transportation services for hazardous and non-hazardous containerized waste for recycling or disposal; machine cleaning and maintenance, and disposal and replenishment of clean solvent or aqueous fluids; and vacuum services to remove solids, residual oily water, and sludge and other fluids from customers' oil/water separators, sumps, and collection tanks, as well as removes and collects waste fluids found at large and small industrial locations, including metal fabricators, auto maintenance providers, and general manufacturers. This segment also manufactures, formulates, packages, distributes, and markets lubricants and other automotive products. Clean Harbors, Inc. was incorporated in 1980 and is headquartered in Norwell, Massachusetts.