Head to Head Survey: 5N Plus (OTCMKTS:FPLSF) & Halma (OTCMKTS:HLMAF)

5N Plus (OTCMKTS:FPLSF) and Halma (OTCMKTS:HLMAF) are both basic materials companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, profitability, risk, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, dividends and earnings.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and recommmendations for 5N Plus and Halma, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
5N Plus	0	0	0	0	N/A
Halma	0	0	0	0	N/A

Volatility and Risk

5N Plus has a beta of 1.89, indicating that its stock price is 89% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Halma has a beta of 1.18, indicating that its stock price is 18% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

0.1% of 5N Plus shares are owned by institutional investors. 3.9% of 5N Plus shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares 5N Plus and Halma”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
5N Plus	$242.37 million	1.98	$15.40 million	$0.13	41.54
Halma	$2.56 billion	4.79	$337.88 million	N/A	N/A

Halma has higher revenue and earnings than 5N Plus.

Profitability

This table compares 5N Plus and Halma’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
5N Plus	4.15%	9.61%	3.51%
Halma	N/A	N/A	N/A

Summary

5N Plus beats Halma on 6 of the 9 factors compared between the two stocks.

About 5N Plus

5N Plus Inc. produces and sells specialty metals and chemicals in North America, Europe, and Asia. It operates through two segments, Specialty Semiconductors and Performance Materials. The company offers semiconductor compounds, semiconductor wafers, metals, epitaxial semiconductor substrates, and solar cells. It also provides active pharmaceutical ingredients, animal feed additives, specialized chemicals, commercial grade metals, alloys, engineered powders, and recycling services. The company serves renewable energy, security, space, pharmaceutical, medical imaging, manufacturing, electronic, consumer, and industrial application markets. 5N Plus Inc. is headquartered in Montreal, Canada.

About Halma

Halma plc, together its subsidiaries, provides technology solutions in the safety, health, and environmental markets in the United States, Mainland Europe, the United Kingdom, the Asia Pacific, Africa, the Middle East, and internationally. It operates through three segments: Safety, Environmental & Analysis, and Medical. The Safety segment provides fire safety, fire detection and fire suppression; safe movement in public, commercial, and industrial spaces; elevator safety; communications in emergencies; control of access in potentially hazardous industrial and commercial environments; electrical safety; and the safe management of pipelines and storage assets solutions. This segment serves shops and restaurants, healthcare facilities, and offices and stadiums; industrial and logistics assets; public spaces and critical infrastructure; and aerospace, and rail and automotive markets. The Environmental & Analysis segment offers optical, optoelectronic, and spectral imaging systems; environmental monitoring, water and waste water analysis and treatment, gas analysis and detection, and optical analysis systems. It serves the optical analysis, water analysis and treatment, gas detection, and environmental monitoring markets. The Medical segment provides critical fluidic components used by medical diagnostics and original equipment manufacturers; components, devices and systems that provide information and analytics to understand patient health and enable providers to make decisions across the continuum of care; technologies and solutions to enable in-vitro diagnostic systems and life-science discoveries and development; and technologies that enable treatment across clinical specialties. This segment serves the life sciences, health assessment and analytics, and therapeutic solutions market. The company was incorporated in 1894 and is headquartered in Amersham, the United Kingdom.