Financial Survey: Hawkins (NASDAQ:HWKN) vs. Westlake Chemical Partners (NYSE:WLKP)

Hawkins (NASDAQ:HWKN) and Westlake Chemical Partners (NYSE:WLKP) are both basic materials companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, valuation, dividends, earnings, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership and risk.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current recommendations for Hawkins and Westlake Chemical Partners, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Hawkins	0	2	2	0	2.50
Westlake Chemical Partners	0	1	1	0	2.50

Hawkins currently has a consensus price target of $200.00, suggesting a potential upside of 29.22%. Given Hawkins’ higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe Hawkins is more favorable than Westlake Chemical Partners.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Hawkins and Westlake Chemical Partners”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Hawkins	$1.08 billion	2.98	$81.55 million	$3.91	39.58
Westlake Chemical Partners	$1.17 billion	0.69	$48.70 million	$1.64	13.98

Hawkins has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Westlake Chemical Partners. Westlake Chemical Partners is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Hawkins, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

69.7% of Hawkins shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 78.3% of Westlake Chemical Partners shares are owned by institutional investors. 4.1% of Hawkins shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.1% of Westlake Chemical Partners shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Dividends

Hawkins pays an annual dividend of $0.76 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.5%. Westlake Chemical Partners pays an annual dividend of $1.89 per share and has a dividend yield of 8.2%. Hawkins pays out 19.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Westlake Chemical Partners pays out 115.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Hawkins has increased its dividend for 20 consecutive years.

Volatility & Risk

Hawkins has a beta of 0.76, indicating that its stock price is 24% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Westlake Chemical Partners has a beta of 0.52, indicating that its stock price is 48% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Hawkins and Westlake Chemical Partners’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Hawkins	7.53%	16.08%	8.35%
Westlake Chemical Partners	4.69%	7.15%	4.57%

Summary

Hawkins beats Westlake Chemical Partners on 13 of the 16 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Hawkins

Hawkins, Inc. operates as a specialty chemical and ingredients company in the United States. It operates through three segments: Industrial, Water Treatment, and Health and Nutrition. The Industrial segment offers industrial chemicals, products, and services to agriculture, chemical processing, electronics, energy, food, pharmaceutical, and plating industries. This segment manufactures sodium hypochlorite and agricultural products, as well as various food-grade and pharmaceutical products, such as liquid phosphates, lactates, other blended products, and agricultural products; and receives, stores, and distributes various chemicals comprising liquid caustic soda, sulfuric acid, hydrochloric acid, urea, phosphoric acid, aqua ammonia, and potassium hydroxide. It also repackages water treatment chemicals and bulk industrial chemicals; and performs custom blending of chemicals. The Water Treatment segment provides chemicals, products, equipment, services, and solutions for potable water, municipal and industrial wastewater, industrial process water, non-residential swimming pool water, and agriculture water. The Health and Nutrition segment offers ingredient distribution, processing, and formulation solutions to manufacturers of nutraceutical, functional food and beverage, personal care, dietary supplement and other nutritional food, and health and wellness products. Its products portfolio includes minerals, vitamins and amino acids, excipients, joint products, botanicals and herbs, sweeteners, and enzymes. Hawkins, Inc. was founded in 1938 and is headquartered in Roseville, Minnesota.

About Westlake Chemical Partners

Westlake Chemical Partners LP acquires, develops, and operates ethylene production facilities and related assets in the United States. The company’s ethylene production facilities primarily convert ethane into ethylene. It also sells ethylene co-products, such as propylene, crude butadiene, pyrolysis gasoline, and hydrogen directly to third parties on either a spot or contract basis. Westlake Chemical Partners GP LLC serves as the general partner of the company. Westlake Chemical Partners LP was founded in 1991 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.