Contrasting Trinseo (NYSE:TSE) and Ingevity (NYSE:NGVT)

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

Analyst Ratings

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

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Trinseo	1	0	0	0	1.00
Ingevity	1	1	1	0	2.00

Ingevity has a consensus target price of $58.00, indicating a potential upside of 4.54%. Given Ingevity’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Ingevity is more favorable than Trinseo.

Profitability

This table compares Trinseo and Ingevity’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Trinseo	-11.96%	N/A	-10.21%
Ingevity	-16.35%	84.92%	7.95%

Institutional & Insider Ownership

82.7% of Trinseo shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 91.6% of Ingevity shares are owned by institutional investors. 4.5% of Trinseo shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.1% of Ingevity shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Risk and Volatility

Trinseo has a beta of 1.44, suggesting that its stock price is 44% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Ingevity has a beta of 1.4, suggesting that its stock price is 40% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings and Valuation

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

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Trinseo	$3.51 billion	0.02	-$348.50 million	($10.97)	-0.18
Ingevity	$1.41 billion	1.44	-$430.30 million	($5.95)	-9.32

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

Summary

Ingevity beats Trinseo on 8 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Trinseo

Trinseo PLC operates as a specialty material solutions provider in the United States, Europe, the Asia-Pacific, and internationally. It operates through five segments: Engineered Materials, Latex Binders, Plastics Solutions, Polystyrene, and Americas Styrenics. The Engineered Materials segment offers rigid thermoplastic compounds and blends, soft thermoplastic, continuous cast, cell cast, activated methyl methacrylates (MMA), PMMA resins, and extruded PMMA sheets and resins for consumer electronics, medical, footwear, automotive, and building and construction applications under the EMERGE, CALIBRE, PLEXIGLAS, ALTUGLAS, ACRYSPA, AVONITE, STUDIO, MEGOL, APILON, APIGO, and APINAT brands. The Latex Binders segment provides styrene-butadiene latex, and other latex polymers and binders primarily for coated paper and packaging board, carpet, and artificial turf backings, as well as the adhesive, building and construction, and technical textile paper market. The Plastics Solutions segment offers acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene, styrene-acrylonitrile, polycarbonate, and compounds and blends for automotive and other applications under the MAGNUM brand. The Polystyrene segment provides general purpose polystyrenes and high impact polystyrene for use in appliances, food packaging and food service disposables, consumer electronics, and building and construction materials under the STYRON brand. The Americas Styrenics segment provides styrene and polystyrene for appliances, food packaging, food service disposables, consumer electronics, and building and construction materials applications. Trinseo PLC was incorporated in 2015 and is headquartered in Wayne, Pennsylvania.

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.