Critical Contrast: TSS (NASDAQ:TSSI) & Alfa Laval (OTCMKTS:ALFVY)

TSS (NASDAQ:TSSI) and Alfa Laval (OTCMKTS:ALFVY) are both construction companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, earnings, risk, profitability, valuation, analyst recommendations and dividends.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

0.0% of Alfa Laval shares are held by institutional investors. 18.9% of TSS shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares TSS and Alfa Laval”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
TSS	$148.00 million	4.75	$5.98 million	$0.36	78.03
Alfa Laval	$6.33 billion	2.80	$699.19 million	$1.75	24.50

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

Risk and Volatility

TSS has a beta of 1.66, meaning that its stock price is 66% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Alfa Laval has a beta of 1.34, meaning that its stock price is 34% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares TSS and Alfa Laval’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
TSS	3.87%	121.89%	11.68%
Alfa Laval	11.26%	19.01%	8.94%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings for TSS and Alfa Laval, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
TSS	0	0	0	0	0.00
Alfa Laval	0	2	0	0	2.00

About TSS

TSS, Inc. offers planning, design, engineering, construction management, commissioning and maintenance services. It provides these services primarily for specialized facilities such as data centers, communications rooms, call centers, laboratories, trading floors, network operations centers, medical facilities and similar environments. TSS Inc., formerly known as Fortress International Group, Inc., is based in Columbia, United States.

About Alfa Laval

Alfa Laval Corporate AB provides heat transfer, separation, and fluid handling products and solutions worldwide. It operates in three divisions: Energy, Food & Water, and Marine. The company offers oil/gas-fired steam and composite steam boilers, exhaust gas economizer, and ballast water treatment systems, and exhaust gas cleaning products. It also provides sensing and control, cleaning validation, condition monitoring, agitators, tank, powder mixers, fittings, and tubes, as well as wall mounted cleaning nozzles, rotary jet and heads; and tank accessories and covers. In addition, the company offers centrifugal, rotary lobe, three screw, twin screw, and circumferential piston pumps. Further, it provides butterfly, control and check, double seal, diaphragm, double seat, regulating, safety, sampling, shutter, single seat, and ball valves. Additionally, the company offers heat exchanger, tube-in-tube heat exchangers, and process shell-and-tube heat exchangers. Furthermore, it provides finned tube air heat, scraped surface heat exchangers, and various plate heat exchangers, wet surface, and HYAC hybrid air coolers. The company also offers decanters and separator related products. It serves energy, utilities, home, personal care, food, dairy, beverage, marine, transportation, pharmaceutical, biotech, water, and wastewater industries. Alfa Laval Corporate AB was founded in 1883 and is headquartered in Lund, Sweden.