Head-To-Head Comparison: Adecoagro (NYSE:AGRO) and FMC (NYSE:FMC)

FMC (NYSE:FMC) and Adecoagro (NYSE:AGRO) are both small-cap consumer staples companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, profitability, valuation, earnings, dividends and risk.

Dividends

FMC pays an annual dividend of $0.32 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.9%. Adecoagro pays an annual dividend of $0.24 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.4%. FMC pays out -1.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Adecoagro pays out 1,200.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Adecoagro has raised its dividend for 3 consecutive years. FMC is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares FMC and Adecoagro”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
FMC	$3.43 billion	0.41	-$2.24 billion	($19.98)	-0.56
Adecoagro	$1.43 billion	1.01	-$8.35 million	$0.02	504.00

Adecoagro has lower revenue, but higher earnings than FMC. FMC is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Adecoagro, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings and target prices for FMC and Adecoagro, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
FMC	4	8	2	0	1.86
Adecoagro	2	4	1	0	1.86

FMC currently has a consensus price target of $15.71, indicating a potential upside of 39.94%. Adecoagro has a consensus price target of $12.12, indicating a potential upside of 20.21%. Given FMC’s higher possible upside, research analysts plainly believe FMC is more favorable than Adecoagro.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

91.9% of FMC shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 45.3% of Adecoagro shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.8% of FMC shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 6.7% of Adecoagro shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Risk and Volatility

FMC has a beta of 0.38, suggesting that its share price is 62% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Adecoagro has a beta of -0.04, suggesting that its share price is 104% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares FMC and Adecoagro’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
FMC	-72.93%	10.53%	2.95%
Adecoagro	0.95%	-2.38%	-0.90%

Summary

FMC beats Adecoagro on 9 of the 16 factors compared between the two stocks.

About FMC

FMC Corporation, an agricultural sciences company, provides crop protection, plant health, and professional pest and turf management products. It develops, markets, and sells crop protection chemicals that includes insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides; and biologicals, crop nutrition, and seed treatment products, which are used in agriculture to enhance crop yield and quality by controlling a range of insects, weeds, and diseases, as well as in non-agricultural markets for pest control. The company markets its products through its own sales organization and through alliance partners, independent distributors, and sales representatives. It operates in North America, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. The company was founded in 1883 and is headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

About Adecoagro

Adecoagro S.A. operates as an agro-industrial company in South America. The company mainly operates through three segments: Farming; Sugar, Ethanol and Energy; and Land Transformation. It engages in farming crops, rice and other agricultural products, dairy operations, and land transformation activities, as well as sugar, ethanol, and energy production activities. The company is involved in the planting, harvesting, and sale of grains, oilseeds, and fibers, including wheat, corn, soybeans, peanuts, cotton, sunflowers, and others; provision of grain warehousing/conditioning, handling, and drying services to third parties; and purchase and sale of crops produced by third parties. It also plants, harvests, processes, and markets rice; and produces and sells raw milk, UHT, cheese, and powder milk. In addition, the company engages in the cultivating and transforming of sugarcane into ethanol, sugar, and electricity. Further, it is involved in the identification and acquisition of underdeveloped and undermanaged farmland, and the realization of value through the strategic disposition of assets. Adecoagro S.A. was founded in 2002 and is based in Luxembourg, Luxembourg.