Pentair (PNR) versus Its Competitors Financial Survey

Pentair (NYSE:PNR) is one of 174 publicly-traded companies in the “Specialty Industrial Machinery” industry, but how does it weigh in compared to its rivals? We will compare Pentair to related companies based on the strength of its earnings, institutional ownership, valuation, risk, analyst recommendations, dividends and profitability.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

88.6% of Pentair shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 46.4% of shares of all “Specialty Industrial Machinery” companies are owned by institutional investors. 0.9% of Pentair shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 23.6% of shares of all “Specialty Industrial Machinery” companies are owned by company 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

Pentair has a beta of 1.16, suggesting that its stock price is 16% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Pentair’s rivals have a beta of 1.23, suggesting that their average stock price is 23% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Dividends

Pentair pays an annual dividend of $0.88 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.2%. Pentair pays out 29.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. As a group, “Specialty Industrial Machinery” companies pay a dividend yield of 3.5% and pay out 28.4% of their earnings in the form of a dividend. Pentair has raised its dividend for 48 consecutive years. Pentair lags its rivals as a dividend stock, given its lower dividend yield and higher payout ratio.

Profitability

This table compares Pentair and its rivals’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Pentair	11.82%	22.39%	9.50%
Pentair Competitors	-6.70%	-5.48%	1.54%

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings and recommmendations for Pentair and its rivals, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Pentair	1	3	11	0	2.67
Pentair Competitors	1112	4506	5761	88	2.42

Pentair currently has a consensus price target of $69.20, indicating a potential downside of 2.48%. As a group, “Specialty Industrial Machinery” companies have a potential upside of 17.52%. Given Pentair’s rivals higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Pentair has less favorable growth aspects than its rivals.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Pentair and its rivals top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Pentair	$4.12 billion	$480.90 million	23.81
Pentair Competitors	$4.45 billion	$392.43 million	523.17

Pentair’s rivals have higher revenue, but lower earnings than Pentair. Pentair is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than its rivals, indicating that it is currently more affordable than other companies in its industry.

Summary

Pentair rivals beat Pentair on 8 of the 15 factors compared.

Pentair Company Profile

Pentair plc provides various water solutions worldwide. The company operates through three segments: Pool, Water Solutions, Industrial & Flow Technologies. It designs, manufactures, and sells residential and commercial pool equipment and accessories, including pumps, filters, heaters, lights, automatic controls, automatic cleaners, maintenance equipment, and pool accessories for residential and commercial pool maintenance, repair, renovation, service, and construction applications; and water treatment products and systems comprising pressure tanks, control valves, activated carbon products, conventional filtration products, and point-of-entry and point-of-use systems for use in residential whole home water filtration, drinking water filtration, water softening solutions, commercial total water management and filtration, and foodservice operations. The company also manufactures and sells fluid treatment products, such as advanced membrane filtration products, separation systems, and membrane bioreactors; water supply and disposal, solid handling, fluid transfer, and turbine pumps; and valves, spray nozzles, process filtration systems, and gas recovery solutions for food and beverage, fluid separation technologies, water and wastewater treatment, water wells, pressure boosting, fire suppression, flood control, agricultural irrigation, crop spray, fluid circulation and transfer, fluid delivery, ion exchange, desalination, residential and municipal wells, and wastewater solids handling applications. It offers its products under the the Everpure, KBI, Kreepy Krauly, Manitowoc Ice, Pleatco, RainSoft, and Sta-Rite; and Pentair, Aurora, Berkeley, Codeline, Fairbanks-Nijhuis, Haffmans, Hydromatic, Hypro, Jung Pumpen, Myers, Sta-Rite, Shurflo, Südmo, and X-Flow brands. The company was founded in 1966 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom.