Critical Review: Decent (NASDAQ:DXST) & Veralto (NYSE:VLTO)

Decent (NASDAQ:DXST) and Veralto (NYSE:VLTO) are both business services companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their valuation, analyst recommendations, risk, profitability, earnings, institutional ownership and dividends.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

91.3% of Veralto shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.4% of Veralto shares are owned 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.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and price targets for Decent and Veralto, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Decent	1	0	0	0	1.00
Veralto	0	4	6	0	2.60

Veralto has a consensus price target of $113.43, indicating a potential upside of 11.21%. Given Veralto’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Veralto is more favorable than Decent.

Profitability

This table compares Decent and Veralto’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Decent	N/A	N/A	N/A
Veralto	16.65%	41.45%	14.05%

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Decent and Veralto”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Decent	$11.54 million	2.00	$2.10 million	N/A	N/A
Veralto	$5.19 billion	4.87	$833.00 million	$3.58	28.49

Veralto has higher revenue and earnings than Decent.

Summary

Veralto beats Decent on 11 of the 11 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Decent

Decent Holding, Inc. engages in the provision of wastewater treatment by cleansing the industrial wastewater, ecological river restoration, and river ecosystem management. Its products and services include river water quality management and microbial products for water quality enhancement and pollutant cleansing purposes. The company was founded by Ding Xin Sun on January 6, 2022 and is headquartered in Yantai, China.

About Veralto

Veralto Corporation provides water analytics, water treatment, marking and coding, and packaging and color services worldwide. It operates through two segments, Water Quality (WQ) and Product Quality & Innovation (PQI). The WQ segment offers precision instrumentation and water treatment technologies to measure, analyze, and treat water in residential, commercial, municipal, industrial, research, and natural resource applications through the Hach, Trojan Technologies, and ChemTreat brands. This segment provides water solutions, including chemical reagents, services, and digital solutions. The PQI segment offers inline printing solutions for products and packaging with marking and coding systems; marking and coding for packaged goods and related consumables; design software and imaging systems for the creation of new packaging designs; color management solutions for printed packages and consumer and industrial products; color standard services for the design industry; and a software solution that provides digital asset management, marketing resource management, and product information management. This segment sells its products and services through the Videojet, Linx, Esko, X-Rite, and Pantone brands to regulated industries, including municipal utilities, food and beverage, pharmaceutical, and industrials. The company was formerly known as DH EAS Holding Corp. and changed its name to Veralto Corporation in February 2023. Veralto Corporation was incorporated in 2022 and is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts.