Critical Survey: LeGrand (OTCMKTS:LGRDY) vs. Tecogen (OTCMKTS:TGEN)

Tecogen (OTCMKTS:TGEN) and LeGrand (OTCMKTS:LGRDY) are both industrials companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, earnings, analyst recommendations, risk, profitability, dividends and valuation.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings for Tecogen and LeGrand, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Tecogen	0	0	0	0	0.00
LeGrand	0	6	4	1	2.55

Tecogen presently has a consensus target price of $7.50, indicating a potential upside of 155.10%. Given Tecogen’s higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Tecogen is more favorable than LeGrand.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Tecogen and LeGrand”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Tecogen	$24.58 million	3.61	-$4.60 million	($0.34)	-8.65
LeGrand	$10.72 billion	3.80	$1.41 billion	$1.16	26.76

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

Risk & Volatility

Tecogen has a beta of 2.15, meaning that its share price is 115% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, LeGrand has a beta of 0.96, meaning that its share price is 4% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Tecogen and LeGrand’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Tecogen	-24.15%	-42.06%	-19.55%
LeGrand	13.01%	17.83%	7.55%

Summary

LeGrand beats Tecogen on 11 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Tecogen

Tecogen Inc., together with its subsidiaries, designs, manufactures, markets, and maintains ultra-clean cogeneration products for multi-family residential, commercial, recreational, and industrial use primarily in the United States. It operates through three segments: Products, Services, and Energy Production. The Products segment designs, manufactures, and sells industrial and commercial cogeneration systems. The Services segment provides operation and maintenance services for products under long term service contracts. The Energy Production segment sells energy in the form of electricity, heat, hot water, and cooling to customers under long-term energy sales agreements. The company also offers natural gas-powered cogeneration systems for water and space heating, and/or air conditioning. Its product portfolio includes InVerde e+ and TecoPower cogeneration units for the supply electricity and hot water; Tecochill, an air-conditioning and refrigeration chillers, and hybrid-drive air-cooled and gas engine-driven chillers to produce chilled water and hot water; Tecofrost, a gas engine-driven refrigeration compressors to circulate refrigerant and provide hot water as a byproduct; and Ultera, an emissions control technology. In addition, the company provides long-term maintenance contracts, parts sales, and turnkey installation for products through a network of field service centers. It sells its products to healthcare, housing and hospitality, ice rink and low temperature, recreation facilities, industrial, indoor growing, and breweries markets through in-house marketing, as well as independent sales agents and representatives. Tecogen Inc. was incorporated in 2000 and is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts.

About LeGrand

Legrand SA, together with its subsidiaries, manufactures, distributes, and sells electrical and digital building infrastructures in Europe, North and Central America, and internationally. The company offers energy distribution, protection, and management solutions, such as electric vehicle charging, residential and small commercial panels, switchboards and power cabinets, and UPS devices; and wiring devices, connected home and building control solutions, and guestroom solutions, as well as back, junction, DCL, and floor boxes. It also provides security, communication, and network solutions, including access security, digital home networks, emergency lighting, fire alarms, IT networks, intercom and door entry, and nurse call systems; conduits and cable management solutions comprising trunking, ducts, tubes, floor boxes, columns and feeders, and workstation solutions; industrial products, such as enclosures, connections, transformers and power supply, marking accessories and cable ties, motor control and protection, fuse protection, and industrial plugs and sockets, as well as control, button, and signaling products; installation accessories, including wiring accessories, extension cords, multi-outlet units, cable ties and fasteners, and connection boxes and terminals; and lighting products and accessories. The company's products are used in hotels, offices, data centers, shopping centers, health care, industrial, and residential buildings. It also exports its products to approximately 170 countries. Legrand SA was founded in 1865 and is headquartered in Limoges, France.