Mayville Engineering (NYSE:MEC) vs. Mueller Water Products (NYSE:MWA) Head-To-Head Review

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

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and price targets for Mayville Engineering and Mueller Water Products, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Mayville Engineering	1	1	4	0	2.50
Mueller Water Products	1	2	2	0	2.20

Mayville Engineering currently has a consensus price target of $35.75, indicating a potential upside of 89.40%. Mueller Water Products has a consensus price target of $30.20, indicating a potential upside of 27.76%. Given Mayville Engineering’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Mayville Engineering is more favorable than Mueller Water Products.

Profitability

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

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Mayville Engineering	-2.95%	-6.63%	-2.99%
Mueller Water Products	15.02%	23.55%	13.12%

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Mayville Engineering and Mueller Water Products”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Mayville Engineering	$546.49 million	0.88	-$8.11 million	($0.84)	-22.47
Mueller Water Products	$1.43 billion	2.58	$191.70 million	$1.41	16.76

Mueller Water Products has higher revenue and earnings than Mayville Engineering. Mayville Engineering 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.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

45.4% of Mayville Engineering shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 91.7% of Mueller Water Products shares are owned by institutional investors. 5.6% of Mayville Engineering shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 1.1% of Mueller Water Products shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Risk and Volatility

Mayville Engineering has a beta of 1.26, suggesting that its stock price is 26% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Mueller Water Products has a beta of 1.01, suggesting that its stock price is 1% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Mueller Water Products beats Mayville Engineering on 9 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Mayville Engineering

Mayville Engineering Company, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, engages in the production, design, prototyping and tooling, fabrication, aluminum extrusion, coating, and assembling of aftermarket components in the United States. It also supplies engineered components to original equipment manufacturers. The company serves heavy and medium duty commercial vehicles, construction and access equipment, powersports, agriculture, military, and other end markets. Mayville Engineering Company, Inc. was founded in 1945 and is headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

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.