Pentair (NYSE:PNR) vs. 374Water (NASDAQ:SCWO) Head-To-Head Analysis

Pentair (NYSE:PNR) and 374Water (NASDAQ:SCWO) are both business services companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, valuation, earnings, profitability, institutional ownership, risk and dividends.

Volatility & Risk

Pentair has a beta of 1.05, indicating that its share price is 5% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, 374Water has a beta of -0.28, indicating that its share price is 128% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

92.4% of Pentair shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 12.2% of 374Water shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.3% of Pentair shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 16.3% of 374Water shares are owned by 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 Recommendations

This is a summary of recent recommendations and price targets for Pentair and 374Water, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Pentair	3	2	10	0	2.47
374Water	1	0	0	0	1.00

Pentair presently has a consensus target price of $107.86, suggesting a potential upside of 43.92%. Given Pentair’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Pentair is more favorable than 374Water.

Profitability

This table compares Pentair and 374Water’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Pentair	15.98%	21.92%	12.21%
374Water	-911.15%	-338.77%	-189.45%

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Pentair and 374Water”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Pentair	$4.18 billion	2.90	$653.80 million	$4.08	18.37
374Water	$223,092.00	170.50	-$20.98 million	($0.86)	-2.53

Pentair has higher revenue and earnings than 374Water. 374Water is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Pentair, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

Pentair beats 374Water on 12 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Pentair

Pentair plc provides various water solutions in the United States, Western Europe, China, Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Australia, Canada, and Japan. The company operates through three segments: Flow, Water Solutions, and Pool. The Flow segment designs, manufactures, and sells fluid treatment and pump products and systems, including pressure vessels, gas recovery solutions, membrane bioreactors, wastewater reuse systems and advanced membrane filtration, separation systems, water disposal pumps, water supply pumps, fluid transfer pumps, turbine pumps, solid handling pumps, and agricultural spray nozzles for fluid delivery, ion exchange, desalination, food and beverage, separation technologies in the oil and gas industry, residential and municipal wells, water treatment, wastewater solids handling, pressure boosting, circulation and transfer, fire suppression, flood control, agricultural irrigation, and crop spray in residential, commercial, and industrial markets. The Water Solutions segment provides commercial and residential water treatment products and systems, including pressure tanks, control valves, activated carbon products, commercial ice machines, conventional filtration products, and point-of-entry and point-of-use water treatment systems, as well as installation and preventative services for use in residential whole home water filtration, drinking water filtration, and water softening solutions, as well as commercial total water management and filtration in foodservice operations. The Pool segment provides residential and commercial pool equipment and accessories comprising pumps, filters, heaters, lights, automatic controls, automatic cleaners, maintenance equipment, and pool accessories for applications in residential and commercial pool maintenance, pool repair, renovation, service, and construction and aquaculture solutions. Pentair plc was founded in 1966 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom.

About 374Water

374Water Inc. provides a technology that transforms wet wastes into recoverable resources in the United States. The company transforms wet wastes, including sewage sludge, biosolids, food waste, hazardous and non-hazardous waste, and forever chemicals. It offers AirSCWO systems, a waste stream treatment system based on supercritical water oxidation that are used to treat various hazardous and non-hazardous waste streams. It serves Industrial, agricultural, defense, oil and gas, waste management, sanitation project, environmental remediation and compliance, and municipal markets. 374Water Inc. is based in Durham, North Carolina.