Reviewing Ingevity (NYSE:NGVT) and PPG Industries (NYSE:PPG)

Ingevity (NYSE:NGVT) and PPG Industries (NYSE:PPG) are both basic materials companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, profitability, analyst recommendations, dividends, valuation, earnings and risk.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings for Ingevity and PPG Industries, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Ingevity	1	2	2	0	2.20
PPG Industries	0	11	6	1	2.44

Ingevity currently has a consensus target price of $80.00, suggesting a potential upside of 7.88%. PPG Industries has a consensus target price of $120.14, suggesting a potential upside of 11.47%. Given PPG Industries’ stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe PPG Industries is more favorable than Ingevity.

Profitability

This table compares Ingevity and PPG Industries’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Ingevity	-13.51%	126.25%	8.90%
PPG Industries	9.93%	22.30%	7.87%

Volatility and Risk

Ingevity has a beta of 1.27, meaning that its stock price is 27% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, PPG Industries has a beta of 1.16, meaning that its stock price is 16% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

91.6% of Ingevity shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 81.9% of PPG Industries shares are held by institutional investors. 0.9% of Ingevity shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.3% of PPG Industries 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.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Ingevity and PPG Industries”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Ingevity	$1.17 billion	2.24	-$167.10 million	($4.65)	-15.95
PPG Industries	$15.88 billion	1.52	$1.58 billion	$6.94	15.53

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

Summary

PPG Industries beats Ingevity on 9 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Ingevity

Ingevity Corporation manufactures and sells activated carbon products, derivative specialty chemicals, and engineered polymers in North America, the Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and South America. It operates through three segments: Performance Materials, Performance Chemicals, and Advanced Polymer Technologies. The Performance Materials segment engineers, manufactures, and sells hardwood-based and chemically activated carbon products for use in gasoline vapor emission control systems in cars, motorcycles, trucks, and boats. This segment also produces other activated carbon products for food, water, beverage, and chemical purification applications. The Performance Chemicals segment consists of road technologies and industrial specialties. This segment's products are used in pavement construction, pavement preservation, pavement reconstruction and recycling, road markings, agrochemical dispersants, paper chemicals, and other industrial uses. The Advanced Polymer Technologies segment produces caprolactone and caprolactone-based specialty polymers for use in coatings, resins, elastomers, adhesives, bioplastics, and medical devices. It serves automotive parts and components manufacturers through sales representatives and distributors. The company was formerly known as WestRock Company, Specialty Chemicals Business and changed its name to Ingevity Corporation in September 2015. Ingevity Corporation was founded in 1964 and is headquartered in North Charleston, South Carolina.

About PPG Industries

PPG Industries, Inc. manufactures and distributes paints, coatings, and specialty materials in the United States, Canada, the Asia Pacific, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. It operates through two segments, Performance Coatings and Industrial Coatings. The Performance Coatings segment offers coatings, solvents, adhesives, sealants, sundries, and software for automotive and commercial transport/fleet repair and refurbishing, light industrial coatings, and specialty coatings for signs; wood stains; paints, thermoplastics, pavement marking products, and other advanced technologies for pavement marking for government, commercial infrastructure, painting, and maintenance contractors; and coatings, sealants, transparencies, transparent armor, adhesives, engineered materials, and packaging and chemical management services for commercial, military, regional jet, and general aviation aircraft. The Industrial Coatings segment offers coatings, adhesives and sealants, and metal pretreatments, as well as services and coatings applications for appliances, agricultural and construction equipment, consumer electronics, automotive parts and accessories, building products, kitchenware, and transportation vehicles and other finished products; and on-site coatings services. It also provides coatings for metal cans, closures, plastic and aluminum tubes for food, beverage and personal care, promotional, and specialty packaging; amorphous precipitated silica for tire, battery separator, and other end-uses; TESLIN substrates for labels, e-passports, drivers' licenses, breathable membranes, and loyalty and identification cards; and organic light emitting diode materials, displays and lighting lens materials, optical lenses, color-change products, and photochromic dyes. PPG Industries, Inc. was incorporated in 1883 and is headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.