Head to Head Comparison: Mueller Water Products (NYSE:MWA) and AB SKF (OTCMKTS:SKFRY)

AB SKF (OTCMKTS:SKFRY) and Mueller Water Products (NYSE:MWA) are both industrials companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, profitability, valuation, dividends, earnings, institutional ownership and analyst recommendations.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares AB SKF and Mueller Water Products”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
AB SKF	$9.36 billion	1.34	$401.34 million	$1.06	26.06
Mueller Water Products	$1.43 billion	2.36	$191.70 million	$1.41	15.34

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

Risk & Volatility

AB SKF has a beta of 1.19, suggesting that its share price is 19% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Mueller Water Products has a beta of 1.01, suggesting that its share price is 1% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings for AB SKF and Mueller Water Products, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
AB SKF	1	4	1	0	2.00
Mueller Water Products	2	1	2	0	2.00

Mueller Water Products has a consensus target price of $28.40, suggesting a potential upside of 31.34%. Given Mueller Water Products’ higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Mueller Water Products is more favorable than AB SKF.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

0.1% of AB SKF shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 91.7% of Mueller Water Products shares are held by institutional investors. 1.1% of Mueller Water Products shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares AB SKF and Mueller Water Products’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
AB SKF	5.05%	13.27%	6.91%
Mueller Water Products	15.02%	23.55%	13.12%

Dividends

AB SKF pays an annual dividend of $0.60 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.2%. Mueller Water Products pays an annual dividend of $0.28 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.3%. AB SKF pays out 56.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Mueller Water Products pays out 19.9% 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 increased its dividend for 10 consecutive years.

Summary

Mueller Water Products beats AB SKF on 11 of the 16 factors compared between the two stocks.

About AB SKF

AB SKF (publ) designs, manufactures, and sells bearings and units, seals, lubrication systems, condition monitoring, and services worldwide. It operates in two segments, Industrial and Automotive. The company offers rolling, mounted and housings, super-precision, slewing, plain, magnetic, and thin section bearings; industrial and automotive seals; lubricants, manual lubrication tools, lubricators, automatic lubrication systems, and lubrication system components; maintenance products, such as hydraulic, mechanical, and alignment tools, as well as heaters; belts, pulleys, chains, sprockets, bushings and hubs, couplings, and bolts and tightening systems; condition monitoring systems; test and measuring equipment, such as waviness and roundness analyzers, noise and vibration testers, and grease test rigs, as well as calibration with traceability, machine training and support, and upgrades and refurbishment services; and vehicle aftermarket products. It also provides application engineering services consisting of technical consultancy, numerical simulation and design, and root cause analysis; asset management services, such as assessment and benchmarking, maintenance strategy review, spare parts and inventory management, and lubrication management; condition-based maintenance, including vibration analysis and diagnostics, thermography, lubrication analysis, and condition monitoring system installation; mechanical maintenance comprising mounting and dismounting, precision alignment, and balancing; remanufacturing and customization; and training solutions, which include instructor-led training, e-learning courses, and webinar recordings. The company serves the aerospace, agriculture, automotive, construction, food and beverage, general machinery, machine tools, marine, material handling, metals, mining, mineral processing, ocean energy, pulp and paper, railways, and wind industries. AB SKF (publ) was incorporated in 1907 and is headquartered in Gothenburg, Sweden.

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.