Comparing Sterling Infrastructure (NASDAQ:STRL) and Alfa Laval (OTCMKTS:ALFVY)

Sterling Infrastructure (NASDAQ:STRL) and Alfa Laval (OTCMKTS:ALFVY) are both construction companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, profitability, analyst recommendations, valuation, risk, dividends and institutional ownership.

Volatility and Risk

Sterling Infrastructure has a beta of 1.35, indicating that its stock price is 35% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Alfa Laval has a beta of 1.37, indicating that its stock price is 37% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

81.0% of Sterling Infrastructure shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 0.0% of Alfa Laval shares are held by institutional investors. 3.7% of Sterling Infrastructure shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares Sterling Infrastructure and Alfa Laval’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Sterling Infrastructure	13.33%	27.93%	11.18%
Alfa Laval	11.86%	19.35%	9.10%

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Sterling Infrastructure and Alfa Laval”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Sterling Infrastructure	$2.12 billion	4.61	$257.46 million	$9.20	34.88
Alfa Laval	$6.33 billion	3.02	$699.19 million	$1.87	24.76

Alfa Laval has higher revenue and earnings than Sterling Infrastructure. Alfa Laval is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Sterling Infrastructure, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current recommendations for Sterling Infrastructure and Alfa Laval, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Sterling Infrastructure	0	0	2	1	3.33
Alfa Laval	0	4	0	0	2.00

Sterling Infrastructure presently has a consensus target price of $355.00, suggesting a potential upside of 10.61%. Given Sterling Infrastructure’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe Sterling Infrastructure is more favorable than Alfa Laval.

Summary

Sterling Infrastructure beats Alfa Laval on 12 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Sterling Infrastructure

Sterling Infrastructure, Inc. engages in the provision of e-infrastructure, transportation, and building solutions primarily in the United States. It operates through three segments: E-Infrastructure Solutions, Transportation Solutions, and Building Solutions. The E-Infrastructure Solutions segment provides site development services for the blue-chip end users in the e-commerce distribution center, data center, manufacturing, warehousing, and power generation sectors. The Transportation Solutions segment is involved in the development of infrastructure and rehabilitation projects for highways, roads, bridges, airports, ports, rail, and storm drainage systems for the departments of transportation in various states, regional transit authorities, airport authorities, port authorities, water authorities, and railroads. The Building Solutions segment provides residential and commercial concrete foundations for single-family and multi-family homes, parking structures, elevated slabs, other concrete work for developers and general contractors, as well as provides plumbing services for residential builds. The company was formerly known as Sterling Construction Company, Inc. and changed its name to Sterling Infrastructure, Inc. in June 2022. Sterling Infrastructure, Inc. was founded in 1955 and is headquartered in The Woodlands, Texas.

About Alfa Laval

Alfa Laval Corporate AB provides heat transfer, separation, and fluid handling products and solutions worldwide. It operates in three divisions: Energy, Food & Water, and Marine. The company offers oil/gas-fired steam and composite steam boilers, exhaust gas economizer, and ballast water treatment systems, and exhaust gas cleaning products. It also provides sensing and control, cleaning validation, condition monitoring, agitators, tank, powder mixers, fittings, and tubes, as well as wall mounted cleaning nozzles, rotary jet and heads; and tank accessories and covers. In addition, the company offers centrifugal, rotary lobe, three screw, twin screw, and circumferential piston pumps. Further, it provides butterfly, control and check, double seal, diaphragm, double seat, regulating, safety, sampling, shutter, single seat, and ball valves. Additionally, the company offers heat exchanger, tube-in-tube heat exchangers, and process shell-and-tube heat exchangers. Furthermore, it provides finned tube air heat, scraped surface heat exchangers, and various plate heat exchangers, wet surface, and HYAC hybrid air coolers. The company also offers decanters and separator related products. It serves energy, utilities, home, personal care, food, dairy, beverage, marine, transportation, pharmaceutical, biotech, water, and wastewater industries. Alfa Laval Corporate AB was founded in 1883 and is headquartered in Lund, Sweden.