Mueller Industries (NYSE:MLI) & TriMas (NASDAQ:TRS) Head to Head Comparison

Mueller Industries (NYSE:MLI) and TriMas (NASDAQ:TRS) are both industrials companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, earnings, dividends, risk, valuation and profitability.

Volatility and Risk

Mueller Industries has a beta of 1.05, meaning that its share price is 5% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, TriMas has a beta of 0.65, meaning that its share price is 35% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent recommendations and price targets for Mueller Industries and TriMas, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Mueller Industries	0	0	1	0	3.00
TriMas	0	0	2	0	3.00

Mueller Industries currently has a consensus price target of $105.00, suggesting a potential upside of 9.72%. TriMas has a consensus price target of $45.00, suggesting a potential upside of 18.42%. Given TriMas’ higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe TriMas is more favorable than Mueller Industries.

Dividends

Mueller Industries pays an annual dividend of $1.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.0%. TriMas pays an annual dividend of $0.16 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.4%. Mueller Industries pays out 15.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. TriMas pays out 17.6% 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 Industries has raised its dividend for 5 consecutive years. Mueller Industries is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

Profitability

This table compares Mueller Industries and TriMas’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Mueller Industries	17.48%	24.47%	20.63%
TriMas	3.83%	11.49%	5.72%

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Mueller Industries and TriMas”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Mueller Industries	$3.77 billion	2.81	$604.88 million	$6.30	15.19
TriMas	$925.01 million	1.67	$24.25 million	$0.91	41.76

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

Institutional and Insider Ownership

94.5% of Mueller Industries shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 99.4% of TriMas shares are held by institutional investors. 2.7% of Mueller Industries shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 14.2% of TriMas shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Mueller Industries beats TriMas on 11 of the 16 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Mueller Industries

Mueller Industries, Inc. manufactures and sells copper, brass, aluminum, and plastic products in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, South Korea, the Middle East, China, and Mexico. It operates through three segments: Piping Systems, Industrial Metals, and Climate. The Piping Systems segment offers copper tubes, fittings, line sets, and pipe nipples. It also resells steel pipes, brass and plastic plumbing valves, malleable iron fittings and faucets, and plumbing specialties; and supplies water tubes. This segment sells its products to wholesalers in the plumbing and refrigeration markets, distributors to the manufactured housing and recreational vehicle industries, building material retailers, and air-conditioning original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). The Industrial Metals segment manufactures brass, bronze, and copper alloy rods; plumbing brass, valves, fittings, and gas assemblies; cold-form aluminum and copper products; machining of aluminum, steel, brass, and cast iron impacts and castings; brass and aluminum forgings; brass, aluminum, and stainless-steel valves; fluid control solutions; and gas train assembles to OEMs in the industrial, construction, HVAC, plumbing, and refrigeration markets. The Climate segment offers valves, protection devices, and brass fittings for various OEMs in the commercial HVAC and refrigeration markets; high-pressure components and accessories for the air-conditioning and refrigeration markets; coaxial heat exchangers and twisted tubes for the HVAC, geothermal, refrigeration, swimming pool heat pump, marine, ice machine, commercial boiler, and heat reclamation markets; and insulated HVAC flexible duct systems. Mueller Industries, Inc. was founded in 1917 and is headquartered in Collierville, Tennessee.

About TriMas

TriMas Corporation engages in the design, development, manufacture, and sale of products for consumer products, aerospace, and industrial markets worldwide. The company operates through Packaging, Aerospace, and Specialty Products segments. The Packaging segment offers dispensing products, such as foaming and sanitizer pumps, lotion and hand soap pumps, beverage dispensers, perfume sprayers, and nasal and trigger sprayers; polymeric and steel caps and closures comprising food lids, flip-top and beverage closures, child resistance caps, drum and pail closures, and flexible spouts; polymeric jar products; integrated dispensers; bag-in-box products; and consumable vascular delivery and diagnostic test components under the Rieke, Taplast, Affaba & Ferrari, Intertech, Omega, and Rapak brands. The Aerospace segment provides fasteners, collars, blind bolts, rivets, ducting, and connectors for air management systems, and other highly-machined parts and components to original equipment manufacturers, supply chain distributors, and tier one suppliers, as well as maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO)/aftermarket providers; and military and defense aerospace applications and platforms under the Monogram Aerospace Fasteners, Allfast Fastening Systems, Mac Fasteners, TFI Aerospace, RSA Engineered Products, and Martinic Engineering brands. The Specialty Products segment offers steel cylinders for use in the transportation, storage, and dispensing of compressed gases under the Norris Cylinder brand; natural gas powered wellhead engines, compressors, and replacement parts for oil and natural gas production, and other industrial and commercial markets under the Arrow brand; and spare parts for various industrial engines. It sells its products through a direct sales force, third-party agents, and distributors. TriMas Corporation was incorporated in 1986 and is headquartered in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.