Financial Review: Perma-Fix Environmental Services (NASDAQ:PESI) & Donaldson (NYSE:DCI)

Donaldson (NYSE:DCI) and Perma-Fix Environmental Services (NASDAQ:PESI) are both industrials companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, valuation, risk, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, earnings and dividends.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and target prices for Donaldson and Perma-Fix Environmental Services, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Donaldson	1	1	1	0	2.00
Perma-Fix Environmental Services	0	0	0	0	0.00

Donaldson presently has a consensus price target of $70.00, suggesting a potential downside of 0.75%. Given Donaldson’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Donaldson is more favorable than Perma-Fix Environmental Services.

Profitability

This table compares Donaldson and Perma-Fix Environmental Services’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Donaldson	9.94%	28.86%	14.63%
Perma-Fix Environmental Services	-33.65%	-24.56%	-14.86%

Volatility and Risk

Donaldson has a beta of 0.98, suggesting that its stock price is 2% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Perma-Fix Environmental Services has a beta of 0.28, suggesting that its stock price is 72% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Donaldson and Perma-Fix Environmental Services”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Donaldson	$3.59 billion	2.29	$414.00 million	$2.98	23.67
Perma-Fix Environmental Services	$59.12 million	3.56	-$19.98 million	($1.25)	-9.12

Donaldson has higher revenue and earnings than Perma-Fix Environmental Services. Perma-Fix Environmental Services is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Donaldson, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

82.8% of Donaldson shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 25.5% of Perma-Fix Environmental Services shares are held by institutional investors. 2.7% of Donaldson shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 8.9% of Perma-Fix Environmental Services shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Donaldson beats Perma-Fix Environmental Services on 12 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Donaldson

Donaldson Company, Inc. manufactures and sells filtration systems and replacement parts worldwide. The company operates through three segments: Mobile Solutions, Industrial Solutions, and Life Sciences. Its Mobile Solutions segment provides replacement filters for air and liquid filtration applications, such as air filtration systems; liquid filtration systems for fuel, lube, and hydraulic applications; exhaust and emissions systems and sensors; indicators; and monitoring systems. This segment sells its products to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in the construction, mining, agriculture, aerospace, defense, and transportation markets; and to independent distributors, and OEM dealer networks. The company's Industrial Solutions segment offers dust, fume, and mist collectors; compressed air and industrial gasses purification systems; and hydraulic and lubricated rotating equipment applications, as well as gas and liquid filtration for industrial processes. This segment sells its products to various distributors, OEMs, and end-users. Its Life Sciences segment provides micro-environment gas and liquid filtration for food, beverage, and industrial processes; bioprocessing equipment, that includes bioreactors and fermenters; and bioprocessing consumables, such as chromatography devices, reagents and filters, and polytetrafluoroethylene membrane-based products, as well as specialized air and gas filtration systems for applications, including hard disk drives, semi-conductor manufacturing and sensors, battery systems, and powertrain components to OEMs and various end-users. The company was founded in 1915 and is headquartered in Bloomington, Minnesota.

About Perma-Fix Environmental Services

Perma-Fix Environmental Services, Inc., through its subsidiaries, operates as an environmental and technology know-how company in the United States. The company through Treatment and Services segments. The Treatment segment offers nuclear, low-level radioactive, mixed waste, hazardous and non-hazardous waste treatment, and processing and disposal services through treatment and storage facilities. This segment is also involved in the research and development activities to identify, develop, and implement waste processing techniques for problematic waste streams. The Services segment provides technical services, including professional radiological measurement and site survey of government and commercial installations; health physics services; integrated occupational safety and health services; and consulting, engineering, project and waste management, environmental, decontamination and decommissioning (D&D) field, technical and management personnel and services; and waste management services. This segment also offers nuclear services, including D&D of government and commercial facilities, including engineering, technology applications, specialty services, logistics, transportation, processing, and disposal; and license termination support, such as project management, planning, characterization, waste stream identification and delineation, remediation/demolition, compliance demonstration, final status survey, reporting, transportation, disposal and emergency response. In addition, it maintains, services, maintains, calibrates, and sources health physics, IH and customized nuclear, environmental, and occupational safety and health instruments. The company provides its services to research institutions, commercial companies, public utilities, and governmental agencies through direct sales to customers or through intermediaries. Perma-Fix Environmental Services, Inc. was incorporated in 1990 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.