Pentair (NYSE:PNR – Get Free Report) and Gencor Industries (NASDAQ:GENC – Get Free Report) are both industrials companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, dividends, valuation, risk, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations and earnings.
Institutional and Insider Ownership
92.4% of Pentair shares are held by institutional investors. 1.3% of Pentair shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 30.4% of Gencor Industries shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
Profitability
This table compares Pentair and Gencor Industries’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.
| Net Margins | Return on Equity | Return on Assets | |
| Pentair | 16.24% | 20.62% | 11.44% |
| Gencor Industries | 14.33% | 8.60% | 8.01% |
Analyst Recommendations
| Sell Ratings | Hold Ratings | Buy Ratings | Strong Buy Ratings | Rating Score | |
| Pentair | 4 | 6 | 8 | 0 | 2.22 |
| Gencor Industries | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3.00 |
Pentair presently has a consensus price target of $89.94, suggesting a potential upside of 59.02%. Gencor Industries has a consensus price target of $19.30, suggesting a potential upside of 7.64%. Given Pentair’s higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Pentair is more favorable than Gencor Industries.
Valuation & Earnings
This table compares Pentair and Gencor Industries”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.
| Gross Revenue | Price/Sales Ratio | Net Income | Earnings Per Share | Price/Earnings Ratio | |
| Pentair | $4.18 billion | 2.16 | $653.80 million | $3.98 | 14.21 |
| Gencor Industries | $110.01 million | 2.39 | $14.67 million | $1.16 | 15.46 |
Pentair has higher revenue and earnings than Gencor Industries. Pentair is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Gencor Industries, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Risk and Volatility
Pentair has a beta of 1.02, suggesting that its stock price is 2% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Gencor Industries has a beta of 0.54, suggesting that its stock price is 46% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Summary
Pentair beats Gencor Industries on 10 of the 15 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 Gencor Industries
Gencor Industries, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, designs, manufactures, and sells heavy machinery used in the production of highway construction materials and environmental control equipment. It offers hot-mix asphalt plants to produce asphalt paving materials; related asphalt plant equipment, including hot-mix storage silos, fabric filtration systems, cold feed bins, and other plant components; and a range of mobile batch plants. The company also provides combustion systems that transform solid, liquid, or gaseous fuels into usable energy, or burn multiple fuels in asphalt and aggregate drying industries; and combustion systems for rotary dryers, kilns, fume and liquid incinerators, and fuel heaters, as well as industrial incinerators. In addition, it offers thermal fluid heat transfer systems that transfer heat for storage, heating, and pumping viscous materials, such as asphalt, chemicals, heavy oils, etc. in various industrial and petrochemical applications; specialty storage tanks for various industrial uses; and asphalt pavers under the Blaw-Knox brand. The company sells its products primarily to the highway construction industry through its sales representatives, and independent dealers and agents worldwide. The company was formerly known as Mechtron International Corporation and changed its name to Gencor Industries, Inc. in 1987. Gencor Industries, Inc. was founded in 1894 and is based in Orlando, Florida.
Receive News & Ratings for Pentair Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Pentair and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter.
