Hess Midstream Partners (NYSE:HESM) & Cosan (NYSE:CSAN) Critical Survey

Cosan (NYSE:CSAN) and Hess Midstream Partners (NYSE:HESM) are both mid-cap energy companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, risk, dividends, valuation, analyst recommendations, profitability and earnings.

Profitability

This table compares Cosan and Hess Midstream Partners’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Cosan	-21.83%	-12.58%	-3.00%
Hess Midstream Partners	23.23%	92.18%	8.62%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent recommendations and price targets for Cosan and Hess Midstream Partners, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Cosan	2	4	0	0	1.67
Hess Midstream Partners	2	3	1	0	1.83

Cosan currently has a consensus target price of $3.85, suggesting a potential upside of 43.39%. Hess Midstream Partners has a consensus target price of $36.50, suggesting a potential downside of 5.89%. Given Cosan’s higher possible upside, equities analysts clearly believe Cosan is more favorable than Hess Midstream Partners.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

99.0% of Hess Midstream Partners shares are owned by institutional investors. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Risk & Volatility

Cosan has a beta of 0.71, indicating that its stock price is 29% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Hess Midstream Partners has a beta of 0.52, indicating that its stock price is 48% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Cosan and Hess Midstream Partners”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Cosan	$7.24 billion	0.37	-$1.74 billion	($2.16)	-1.24
Hess Midstream Partners	$1.62 billion	4.93	$352.90 million	$2.90	13.37

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

Summary

Hess Midstream Partners beats Cosan on 10 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Cosan

Cosan S.A. engages in the fuel distribution business. It operates through Raízen, Compass, Moove, Rumo, and Radar segments. The company’s Raízen segment engages in the production, commercialization, origination, and trading of ethanol, bioenergy, renewable sources, and sugar; trading and resale of electricity; and distribution and commercialization of fuels and lubricants. Its Compass segment distributes piped natural gas to industrial, residential, commercial, automotive, and cogeneration customers; and develops infrastructure projects in a regasification terminal, offshore gas pipeline, and thermal generation projects utilizing natural gas, as well as commercialization of electricity and natural gas. The company’s Moove segment produces and distributes lubricants under the Comma brand. Its Rumo segment provides logistics services for rail transportation, port storage, and loading of goods, including grains and sugar; and leases locomotives, wagons, and another railroad equipment, as well as operates containers. The company’s Radar segment manages agricultural property. It operates in Brazil, England, France, Spain and Portugal, Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay and Paraguay, the United States, Asia, and internationally. Cosan S.A. was founded in 1936 and is headquartered in São Paulo, Brazil.

About Hess Midstream Partners

Hess Midstream LP owns, develops, operates, and acquires midstream assets and provide fee-based services to Hess and third-party customers in the United States. It operates through three segments: Gathering; Processing and Storage; and Terminaling and Export. The Gathering segment owns natural gas gathering and compression systems; crude oil gathering systems; and produced water gathering and disposal facilities. Its gathering systems consists of approximately 1,410 miles of high and low pressure natural gas and natural gas liquids gathering pipelines with capacity of approximately 660 million cubic feet per day; crude oil gathering system comprises approximately 570 miles of crude oil gathering pipelines; and produced water gathering system that includes approximately 300 miles of pipelines in gathering systems. The Processing and Storage segment comprises Tioga Gas Plant, a natural gas processing and fractionation plant located in Tioga, North Dakota; a 50% interest in the Little Missouri 4 gas processing plant located in south of the Missouri River in McKenzie County, North Dakota; and Mentor Storage Terminal, a propane storage cavern and rail, and truck loading and unloading facility located in Mentor, Minnesota. The Terminaling and Export segment owns Ramberg terminal facility; Tioga rail terminal; crude oil rail cars; and other Dakota access pipeline connections, as well as Johnson's Corner Header System, a crude oil pipeline header system. Hess Midstream LP was founded in 2014 and is based in Houston, Texas.