Pentair (NYSE:PNR) versus JBT Marel (NYSE:JBTM) Critical Analysis

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

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings and price targets for Pentair and JBT Marel, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Pentair	0	5	10	1	2.75
JBT Marel	0	0	1	0	3.00

Pentair currently has a consensus price target of $111.25, suggesting a potential upside of 13.66%. JBT Marel has a consensus price target of $143.00, suggesting a potential upside of 12.07%. Given Pentair’s higher possible upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Pentair is more favorable than JBT Marel.

Profitability

This table compares Pentair and JBT Marel’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Pentair	15.32%	20.94%	11.05%
JBT Marel	10.25%	10.16%	5.68%

Insider & Institutional Ownership

92.4% of Pentair shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 98.9% of JBT Marel shares are held by institutional investors. 1.1% of Pentair shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.1% of JBT Marel shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Valuation and Earnings

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

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Pentair	$4.08 billion	3.96	$622.70 million	$3.74	26.17
JBT Marel	$1.66 billion	2.44	$582.60 million	$5.39	23.67

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

Volatility and Risk

Pentair has a beta of 1.2, meaning that its stock price is 20% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, JBT Marel has a beta of 1.23, meaning that its stock price is 23% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Dividends

Pentair pays an annual dividend of $1.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.0%. JBT Marel pays an annual dividend of $0.40 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.3%. Pentair pays out 26.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. JBT Marel pays out 7.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years.

Summary

Pentair beats JBT Marel on 11 of the 16 factors compared between the two stocks.

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.

About JBT Marel

JBT Marel Corporation provides technology solutions to food and beverage industry in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Asia Pacific, and Latin America. It offers value-added processing that includes chilling, mixing/grinding, injecting, blending, marinating, tumbling, flattening, forming, portioning, coating, cooking, frying, freezing, extracting, pasteurizing, sterilizing, concentrating, high pressure processing, weighing, inspecting, filling, closing, sealing, end of line material handling, and packaging solutions to the food, beverage, and health market. In addition, it offers automated guided vehicle systems for material movement in the manufacturing, warehouse, and medical facilities. It serves baby food, bakery and confectionery, citrus processing, fruits and nuts, juices, non-food, pet food, pharmaceutical, plant- based beverages and protein, poultry, meat, and seafood, ready meals, oils, soups, sauces, seasoning and dressings, automotive, building material, tissue, paper, and packaging, hospitals, pharma and life sciences, fast moving consumer goods, manufacturing, warehousing, and other industries. The company markets and sells its products and solutions through direct sales force, independent distributors, sales representatives, and technical service teams. The company was formerly known as John Bean Technologies Corporation and changed its name to JBT Marel Corporation in January 2025. JBT Marel Corporation was incorporated in 1994 and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.