Comparing PureCycle Technologies (NASDAQ:PCT) & Pentair (NYSE:PNR)

PureCycle Technologies (NASDAQ:PCT) and Pentair (NYSE:PNR) are both business services companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, valuation, analyst recommendations, dividends, institutional ownership, profitability and earnings.

Profitability

This table compares PureCycle Technologies and Pentair’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
PureCycle Technologies	N/A	-143.06%	-23.17%
Pentair	15.84%	21.83%	12.10%

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares PureCycle Technologies and Pentair”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
PureCycle Technologies	N/A	N/A	-$289.14 million	($1.46)	-6.40
Pentair	$4.08 billion	4.22	$625.40 million	$3.94	26.75

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

Volatility & Risk

PureCycle Technologies has a beta of 2.11, indicating that its share price is 111% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Pentair has a beta of 1.21, indicating that its share price is 21% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current recommendations for PureCycle Technologies and Pentair, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
PureCycle Technologies	1	1	3	2	2.86
Pentair	1	4	11	2	2.78

PureCycle Technologies presently has a consensus target price of $13.67, suggesting a potential upside of 46.25%. Pentair has a consensus target price of $121.07, suggesting a potential upside of 14.89%. Given PureCycle Technologies’ stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe PureCycle Technologies is more favorable than Pentair.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

63.0% of PureCycle Technologies shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 92.4% of Pentair shares are owned by institutional investors. 21.7% of PureCycle Technologies shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.1% of Pentair shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Pentair beats PureCycle Technologies on 9 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About PureCycle Technologies

PureCycle Technologies, Inc. engages in the production of recycled polypropylene (PP). The company holds a license for restoring waste PP into ultra-pure recycled polypropylene resin that has multiple applications, including packaging and labeling for consumer products, piping, ropes, cabling, and plastic parts for various industries. Its recycling process separates color, odor, and other contaminants from plastic waste feedstock to transform it into virgin-like resin. The company was founded in 2015 and is headquartered in Orlando, Florida.

About Pentair

Pentair plc provides various water solutions in the United States, Western Europe, China, Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Australia, Canada, and Japan. The company operates through three segments: Flow, Water Solutions, and Pool. The Flow segment designs, manufactures, and sells fluid treatment and pump products and systems, including pressure vessels, gas recovery solutions, membrane bioreactors, wastewater reuse systems and advanced membrane filtration, separation systems, water disposal pumps, water supply pumps, fluid transfer pumps, turbine pumps, solid handling pumps, and agricultural spray nozzles for fluid delivery, ion exchange, desalination, food and beverage, separation technologies in the oil and gas industry, residential and municipal wells, water treatment, wastewater solids handling, pressure boosting, circulation and transfer, fire suppression, flood control, agricultural irrigation, and crop spray in residential, commercial, and industrial markets. The Water Solutions segment provides commercial and residential water treatment products and systems, including pressure tanks, control valves, activated carbon products, commercial ice machines, conventional filtration products, and point-of-entry and point-of-use water treatment systems, as well as installation and preventative services for use in residential whole home water filtration, drinking water filtration, and water softening solutions, as well as commercial total water management and filtration in foodservice operations. The Pool segment provides residential and commercial pool equipment and accessories comprising pumps, filters, heaters, lights, automatic controls, automatic cleaners, maintenance equipment, and pool accessories for applications in residential and commercial pool maintenance, pool repair, renovation, service, and construction and aquaculture solutions. Pentair plc was founded in 1966 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom.