Critical Contrast: RGC Resources (NASDAQ:RGCO) and Next Fuel (OTCMKTS:NXFI)

RGC Resources (NASDAQ:RGCO) and Next Fuel (OTCMKTS:NXFI) are both utilities companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, dividends, earnings, profitability, risk and valuation.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

35.8% of RGC Resources shares are held by institutional investors. 7.2% of RGC Resources shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings for RGC Resources and Next Fuel, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
RGC Resources	0	0	1	0	3.00
Next Fuel	0	0	0	0	0.00

Given Next Fuel’s higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Next Fuel is more favorable than RGC Resources.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares RGC Resources and Next Fuel”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
RGC Resources	$95.33 million	2.33	$13.28 million	$1.34	15.90
Next Fuel	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

RGC Resources has higher revenue and earnings than Next Fuel.

Profitability

This table compares RGC Resources and Next Fuel’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
RGC Resources	13.05%	11.85%	4.16%
Next Fuel	N/A	N/A	N/A

Summary

RGC Resources beats Next Fuel on 8 of the 9 factors compared between the two stocks.

About RGC Resources

RGC Resources, Inc., through its subsidiaries, operates as an energy services company. It sells and distributes natural gas to residential, commercial, and industrial customers in Roanoke, Virginia, and the surrounding localities. The company also provides various unregulated services. It operates approximately 1,179 miles of transmission and distribution pipeline; and a liquefied natural gas storage facility, as well as owns and operates six metering stations. In addition, it produces biogas. RGC Resources, Inc. was founded in 1883 and is based in Roanoke, Virginia.

About Next Fuel

Next Fuel, Inc. provides water consulting, filtration technology, and services to the oil and gas industry, as well as other industrial water users in agriculture and food processing in the United States. The company offers low energy input pervaporation technology to clean up water used in oil and natural gas production, including Frack drilling; carbon dioxide to product technology that targets the emerging market of carbon footprint elimination; and disc filtration technology to remove high concentrations of suspended solids with particle sizes ranging from 200 microns to 5 microns in size. It also provides water treatment solutions related to new and existing systems. Next Fuel, Inc. is based in Sheridan, Wyoming.