Reviewing Mueller Water Products (NYSE:MWA) and Manitowoc (NYSE:MTW)

Manitowoc (NYSE:MTW) and Mueller Water Products (NYSE:MWA) are both industrials companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their valuation, earnings, profitability, dividends, analyst recommendations, risk and institutional ownership.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

78.7% of Manitowoc shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 91.7% of Mueller Water Products shares are owned by institutional investors. 4.0% of Manitowoc shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 1.1% of Mueller Water Products shares are owned 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.

Risk and Volatility

Manitowoc has a beta of 1.77, indicating that its share price is 77% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Mueller Water Products has a beta of 1.01, indicating that its share price is 1% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current recommendations for Manitowoc and Mueller Water Products, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Manitowoc	2	1	0	0	1.33
Mueller Water Products	2	1	2	0	2.00

Manitowoc currently has a consensus target price of $14.00, indicating a potential downside of 35.03%. Mueller Water Products has a consensus target price of $28.40, indicating a potential upside of 33.64%. Given Mueller Water Products’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Mueller Water Products is more favorable than Manitowoc.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Manitowoc and Mueller Water Products”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Manitowoc	$2.24 billion	0.35	$7.20 million	$0.55	39.18
Mueller Water Products	$1.43 billion	2.32	$191.70 million	$1.41	15.07

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

Profitability

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

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Manitowoc	0.87%	3.86%	1.43%
Mueller Water Products	15.02%	23.55%	13.12%

Summary

Mueller Water Products beats Manitowoc on 10 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Manitowoc

The Manitowoc Company, Inc. provides engineered lifting solutions in the Americas, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the Asia Pacific, and internationally. It designs, manufactures, and distributes crawler-mounted lattice-boom cranes under the Manitowoc brand; a line of top-slewing and self-erecting tower cranes under the Potain brand; mobile hydraulic cranes under the Grove, Shuttlelift, and National Crane brands; and hydraulic boom trucks under the National Crane brand. The company also provides aftermarket services, such as sale of parts and accessories, field service work, routine maintenance services, technical support, erection and decommissioning services, crane and component remanufacturing, training, and telematics services. Its crane products are used in various applications, including energy production/distribution and utilities; petrochemical and industrial; infrastructure, such as road, bridge, and airport construction; and commercial and residential construction. The company serves a range of customers, including dealers, rental companies, contractors, and government entities in the petrochemical, industrial, commercial construction, power and utilities, infrastructure, and residential construction end markets. The Manitowoc Company, Inc. was founded in 1902 and is headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

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.