Mueller Water Products (NYSE:MWA) vs. Webco Industries (OTCMKTS:WEBC) Head-To-Head Contrast

Mueller Water Products (NYSE:MWA) and Webco Industries (OTCMKTS:WEBC) are both industrials companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, earnings, risk, profitability, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership and valuation.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current recommendations and price targets for Mueller Water Products and Webco Industries, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Mueller Water Products	0	3	1	0	2.25
Webco Industries	0	0	0	0	0.00

Mueller Water Products presently has a consensus price target of $26.25, suggesting a potential upside of 10.79%. Given Mueller Water Products’ stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Mueller Water Products is more favorable than Webco Industries.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

91.7% of Mueller Water Products shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.1% of Mueller Water Products shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 54.4% of Webco Industries shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Volatility and Risk

Mueller Water Products has a beta of 1.21, suggesting that its share price is 21% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Webco Industries has a beta of 0.05, suggesting that its share price is 95% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Mueller Water Products and Webco Industries’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Mueller Water Products	10.48%	21.31%	10.86%
Webco Industries	1.23%	N/A	N/A

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Mueller Water Products and Webco Industries”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Mueller Water Products	$1.37 billion	2.70	$115.90 million	$0.91	26.04
Webco Industries	$608.44 million	0.21	$16.05 million	$8.95	20.54

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

Summary

Mueller Water Products beats Webco Industries on 12 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Mueller Water Products

Mueller Water Products, Inc. manufactures and markets products and services for the transmission, distribution, and measurement of water used by municipalities, and the residential and non-residential construction industries in the United States, Israel, and internationally. It operates in two segments, Water Flow Solutions and Water Management Solutions. The Water Flow Solutions segment provides valves for water systems, such as iron gate, butterfly, tapping, check, knife, plug, and ball valves, which are used to control distribution and transmission of potable water and non-potable water, as well as in water transmission or distribution, water treatment facilities, or industrial applications. It also offers service brass products. The Water Management Solutions segment offers dry-barrel and wet-barrel fire hydrants for water infrastructure development; fire protection systems, and water infrastructure repair and replacement projects; pipe repair products, such as couplings, grips, and clamps used to repair leaks; residential, fire line, and commercial water metering products, systems, and services; water leak detection and pipe condition assessment products and services; machines and tools for tapping, drilling, extracting, installing, and stopping-off; gas valve products for use in gas distribution systems; and intelligent water solutions, including pressure control valves, advanced pressure management, network analytics, event management, and date logging. It sells its products under the Canada Valve, Centurion, Ez-Max, Hydro Gate, Hydro-Guard, HYMAX, HYMAX VERSA, Jones, Krausz, Milliken, Mueller, Pratt, Pratt Industrial, Repamax, Repaflex, Singer, Echologics, Echoshore, ePulse, Hersey, LeakFinderRT, LeakFinderST, LeakListener, LeakTuner, Mi.Echo, Mi.Net, Mueller Systems, Sentryx, and U.S. Pipe Valve and Hydrant brands. Mueller Water Products, Inc. was founded in 1857 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.

About Webco Industries

Webco Industries, Inc. manufactures and distributes carbon steel, stainless steel, and other metal tubular products. The company offers cold drawn welded and seamless tubing products for use in air cooler and heater, boiler tube, coiled tubing, steam surface condenser, feed water heater, heat exchanger, instrumentation tubing, mechanical tube, welded pipe, pressure tubing, and specialty stainless tubing, as well as original equipment manufacturer applications. It serves power-gen tubing, oil and gas tubular, process tubing, and automotive/industrial tubular industries. Webco Industries, Inc. was founded in 1969 and is headquartered in Sand Springs, Oklahoma.