Analyzing Hillman Solutions (NASDAQ:HLMN) and Nauticus Robotics (NASDAQ:KITT)

Nauticus Robotics (NASDAQ:KITT) and Hillman Solutions (NASDAQ:HLMN) are both small-cap industrials companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, valuation, dividends, analyst recommendations, earnings, profitability and risk.

Risk and Volatility

Nauticus Robotics has a beta of -0.08, indicating that its stock price is 108% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Hillman Solutions has a beta of 1.42, indicating that its stock price is 42% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current recommendations for Nauticus Robotics and Hillman Solutions, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Nauticus Robotics	1	0	0	0	1.00
Hillman Solutions	0	3	2	1	2.67

Hillman Solutions has a consensus price target of $12.67, suggesting a potential upside of 62.39%. Given Hillman Solutions’ stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Hillman Solutions is more favorable than Nauticus Robotics.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

20.5% of Nauticus Robotics shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 98.1% of Hillman Solutions shares are owned by institutional investors. 26.3% of Nauticus Robotics shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 5.3% of Hillman Solutions shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Nauticus Robotics and Hillman Solutions”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Nauticus Robotics	$5.28 million	0.31	-$40.83 million	($329.27)	-0.00
Hillman Solutions	$1.55 billion	0.98	$40.31 million	$0.22	35.45

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

Profitability

This table compares Nauticus Robotics and Hillman Solutions’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Nauticus Robotics	-1,758.70%	-1,067.00%	-81.40%
Hillman Solutions	2.57%	9.11%	4.70%

Summary

Hillman Solutions beats Nauticus Robotics on 14 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Nauticus Robotics

Nauticus Robotics, Inc. develops ocean robots, cloud software, and services to the ocean industry. The company offers Aquanaut, an autonomous underwater vehicle with sensor suite, which provides capability to observe and inspect subsea assets or other subsea features; Olympic Arm, an all-electric manipulator designed for a variety of intervention tasks on work class remotely operated vehicles; and ToolKITT, a software platform, which consists of interrelated products for ocean sensing, manipulation, autonomous behaviors, survey, search and recovery, and manual intervention. The company was founded in 2014 and is headquartered in Webster, Texas.

About Hillman Solutions

Founded in 1964 and headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, Hillman is a leading North American provider of complete hardware solutions, delivered with industry best customer service to over 40,000 locations. Hillman designs innovative product and merchandising solutions for complex categories that deliver an outstanding customer experience to home improvement centers, mass merchants, national and regional hardware stores, pet supply stores, and OEM & Industrial customers. Leveraging a world-class distribution and sales network, Hillman delivers a “small business” experience with “big business” efficiency.