Reviewing Kone Oyj (OTCMKTS:KNYJY) and Mueller Water Products (NYSE:MWA)

Mueller Water Products (NYSE:MWA) and Kone Oyj (OTCMKTS:KNYJY) are both industrials companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, profitability, risk, earnings, dividends and valuation.

Dividends

Mueller Water Products pays an annual dividend of $0.32 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.4%. Kone Oyj pays an annual dividend of $0.45 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.4%. Mueller Water Products pays out 22.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Kone Oyj pays out 42.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. Mueller Water Products has raised its dividend for 10 consecutive years. Mueller Water Products is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

Profitability

This table compares Mueller Water Products and Kone Oyj’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Mueller Water Products	15.02%	23.55%	13.12%
Kone Oyj	8.33%	38.87%	10.68%

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Mueller Water Products and Kone Oyj”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Mueller Water Products	$1.48 billion	2.35	$191.70 million	$1.41	15.79
Kone Oyj	$12.72 billion	2.24	$1.11 billion	$1.06	29.65

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

Institutional & Insider Ownership

91.7% of Mueller Water Products shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.1% of Mueller Water Products 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.

Volatility & Risk

Mueller Water Products has a beta of 1.01, meaning that its share price is 1% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Kone Oyj has a beta of 0.59, meaning that its share price is 41% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for Mueller Water Products and Kone Oyj, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Mueller Water Products	2	1	2	0	2.00
Kone Oyj	3	3	1	1	2.00

Mueller Water Products presently has a consensus target price of $27.00, indicating a potential upside of 21.26%. Given Mueller Water Products’ higher possible upside, equities analysts clearly believe Mueller Water Products is more favorable than Kone Oyj.

Summary

Mueller Water Products beats Kone Oyj on 12 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Mueller Water Products

Mueller Water Products, Inc. manufactures and markets products and services for the transmission, distribution, and measurement of water used by municipalities, and the residential and non-residential construction industries in the United States, Israel, and internationally. It operates in two segments, Water Flow Solutions and Water Management Solutions. The Water Flow Solutions segment provides valves for water systems, such as iron gate, butterfly, tapping, check, knife, plug, and ball valves, which are used to control distribution and transmission of potable water and non-potable water, as well as in water transmission or distribution, water treatment facilities, or industrial applications. It also offers service brass products. The Water Management Solutions segment offers dry-barrel and wet-barrel fire hydrants for water infrastructure development; fire protection systems, and water infrastructure repair and replacement projects; pipe repair products, such as couplings, grips, and clamps used to repair leaks; residential, fire line, and commercial water metering products, systems, and services; water leak detection and pipe condition assessment products and services; machines and tools for tapping, drilling, extracting, installing, and stopping-off; gas valve products for use in gas distribution systems; and intelligent water solutions, including pressure control valves, advanced pressure management, network analytics, event management, and date logging. It sells its products under the Canada Valve, Centurion, Ez-Max, Hydro Gate, Hydro-Guard, HYMAX, HYMAX VERSA, Jones, Krausz, Milliken, Mueller, Pratt, Pratt Industrial, Repamax, Repaflex, Singer, Echologics, Echoshore, ePulse, Hersey, LeakFinderRT, LeakFinderST, LeakListener, LeakTuner, Mi.Echo, Mi.Net, Mueller Systems, Sentryx, and U.S. Pipe Valve and Hydrant brands. Mueller Water Products, Inc. was founded in 1857 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.

About Kone Oyj

KONE Oyj, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the elevator and escalator business worldwide. The company provides elevators, escalators, and automatic building doors. It offers maintenance services; and modernization solutions. In addition, the company offers KONE Office Flow, a connected solution that allows for personalized user experiences and touch-free access; health and well-being solutions for elevators, escalators, and doors; KONE Access, an access control system, which is integrated with elevator system and building doors; KONE Destination, a destination control system that reduce waiting and travel times; KONE infotainment, a communication channel for building tenants and visitors; and monitoring solutions that enable real-time inspection of elevators and escalators. Further, it provides people flow planning and consulting services; solutions for special buildings and large projects; cybersecurity solutions; and energy solutions for greener buildings. KONE Oyj was founded in 1908 and is based in Espoo, Finland.