Critical Contrast: Novozymes A/S (OTCMKTS:NVZMY) and Westaim (OTCMKTS:WEDXF)

Novozymes A/S (OTCMKTS:NVZMY) and Westaim (OTCMKTS:WEDXF) are both basic materials companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, dividends, analyst recommendations, risk, profitability, valuation and earnings.

Profitability

This table compares Novozymes A/S and Westaim’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Novozymes A/S	N/A	N/A	N/A
Westaim	-123.33%	-6.91%	-6.03%

Institutional and Insider Ownership

0.0% of Novozymes A/S shares are held by institutional investors. 4.2% of Westaim shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Risk and Volatility

Novozymes A/S has a beta of 1.1, meaning that its stock price is 10% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Westaim has a beta of 0.19, meaning that its stock price is 81% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Novozymes A/S and Westaim”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Novozymes A/S	$4.15 billion	N/A	$330.91 million	$1.69	37.58
Westaim	$17.04 million	35.52	-$16.18 million	($1.69)	-10.73

Novozymes A/S has higher revenue and earnings than Westaim. Westaim is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Novozymes A/S, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent recommendations and price targets for Novozymes A/S and Westaim, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Novozymes A/S	0	1	0	0	2.00
Westaim	0	0	0	0	0.00

Summary

Novozymes A/S beats Westaim on 10 of the 11 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Novozymes A/S

Novozymes A/S produces and sells industrial enzymes, microorganisms, and probiotics in Denmark, rest of Europe, North America, Asia Pacific, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and internationally. The company offers protein solutions for the food and beverage industry. It also offers industrial hygiene, drain openers, hard surface, medical cleaning, septic tanks, ware washing, and professional laundry services. In addition, the company provides dishwashing, softener, microbial and medical cleaning services. Further, it provides corn, cotton, forages, peanuts, pulses, soybeans, wheat, small grains, bioyield, and biocontrol solutions; warm water species, recirculating aquaculture system; animal health and nutrition solutions; fiber modification, bleach boosting, deposit control, and starch modification solutions. Additionally, the company provides carbon capture, leather and textiles solutions; enzyme solutions, including corn and wheat separation, liquefaction, saccharification, filtration, isomerization, maltose, and specialties solutions; warm water species and recirculating aquaculture system solutions; human health solutions, comprising brain, oral, protective and immune, and gastrointestinal health solutions; ethanol, biodiesel, renewable diesel, education, wastewater, and sewage sludge, and renewable diesel solutions; agriculture and industry, biogas food waste, food waste, biocatalysis, cell culture, diagnostics, enzyme, and biogas solutions. Furthermore, it provides lipases, proteases, oxidoreductases, and carbohydrases. Novozymes A/S was founded in 1925 and is based in Bagsvaerd, Denmark.

About Westaim

The Westaim Corporation is a private equity firm specializing in direct and indirect investments through acquisitions, joint ventures, secondary investments both direct and indirect, fund of fund investments, and other arrangements. For direct investments, the firm invests in early venture, mid venture, late venture, middle market, later stage, mature, emerging growth, PIPEs, and buyout transactions. For fund of fund investments, it seeks to invest in private equity funds, venture capital funds, and hedge funds. The firm seeks to provide long term capital to businesses operating in the global financial services industry. It typically acquires controlling interests in businesses. The firm seeks to acquire debt, equity, or derivative securities of both public and private companies. It invests with the objective of providing its shareholders with capital appreciation and real wealth preservation. The firm seeks to provide its portfolio companies with advisory services including, but not limited to, advice on capital allocation, financing strategy, performance measurement and merger and acquisition support. It also seeks to partner with like-minded providers of third party capital to help supplement the firm's own capital, when completing acquisitions. The firm generally seeks to hold its investments for seven to 15 years. The Westaim Corporation was founded in 1996 and is based in Toronto, Canada.