Fluence Energy (NASDAQ:FLNC) & CSLM Acquisition (NASDAQ:SPWR) Financial Contrast

CSLM Acquisition (NASDAQ:SPWR) and Fluence Energy (NASDAQ:FLNC) are both small-cap industrials companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, risk, dividends, institutional ownership, earnings, valuation and analyst recommendations.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings for CSLM Acquisition and Fluence Energy, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
CSLM Acquisition	1	0	0	0	1.00
Fluence Energy	7	14	4	0	1.88

Fluence Energy has a consensus target price of $12.42, indicating a potential upside of 83.24%. Given Fluence Energy’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Fluence Energy is more favorable than CSLM Acquisition.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

47.4% of CSLM Acquisition shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 53.2% of Fluence Energy shares are held by institutional investors. 24.5% of CSLM Acquisition shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.7% of Fluence Energy shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares CSLM Acquisition and Fluence Energy’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
CSLM Acquisition	-4.82%	N/A	-5.38%
Fluence Energy	-3.13%	-16.79%	-3.37%

Risk and Volatility

CSLM Acquisition has a beta of 0.71, indicating that its share price is 29% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Fluence Energy has a beta of 2.77, indicating that its share price is 177% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares CSLM Acquisition and Fluence Energy”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
CSLM Acquisition	$300.00 million	0.19	-$45.35 million	($0.19)	-1.42
Fluence Energy	$2.26 billion	0.55	-$48.31 million	($0.61)	-11.11

CSLM Acquisition has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Fluence Energy. Fluence Energy is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than CSLM Acquisition, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

Fluence Energy beats CSLM Acquisition on 9 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About CSLM Acquisition

Complete Solaria, Inc. engages in the provision of solar services. It offers sales enablement, project management, partner coordination, and customer communication. The company is headquartered in San Ramon, CA and does business as SunPower Corporation.

About Fluence Energy

Fluence Energy, Inc., through its subsidiaries, offers energy storage products and solution, services, and artificial intelligence enabled software-as-a-service products for renewables and storage applications in the Americas, the Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. The company sells energy storage products with integrated hardware, software, and digital intelligence. Its energy storage products include Gridstack Pro, a large-scale front-of-the-meter application; Gridstack, a front-of-the-meter application; Sunstack, a DC-coupled energy storage product for DC-coupled solar + storage projects; Edgestack, for smaller-scale commercial and industrial use cases; and Ultrastack, for critical system requirements of distribution and transmission networks. The company also provides engineering and delivery services to support the deployment of its storage products; operational and maintenance services; and digital applications. It serves independent power producers, developer, utilities, and other generators. Fluence Energy, Inc. was founded in 2018 and is headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. Fluence Energy, Inc. is a joint venture of Siemens Aktiengesellschaft and The AES Corporation.