Nine Energy Service (NYSE:NINE) & CES Energy Solutions (OTCMKTS:CESDF) Critical Review

CES Energy Solutions (OTCMKTS:CESDF) and Nine Energy Service (NYSE:NINE) are both energy companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, analyst recommendations, dividends, profitability, valuation, institutional ownership and earnings.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and target prices for CES Energy Solutions and Nine Energy Service, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
CES Energy Solutions	0	0	0	0	N/A
Nine Energy Service	1	0	0	0	1.00

CES Energy Solutions currently has a consensus target price of $2.50, suggesting a potential downside of 55.93%. Given CES Energy Solutions’ higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe CES Energy Solutions is more favorable than Nine Energy Service.

Profitability

This table compares CES Energy Solutions and Nine Energy Service’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
CES Energy Solutions	N/A	N/A	N/A
Nine Energy Service	-8.17%	N/A	-11.78%

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares CES Energy Solutions and Nine Energy Service’s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
CES Energy Solutions	N/A	N/A	N/A	$0.29	19.60
Nine Energy Service	$559.21 million	0.07	-$32.21 million	($1.01)	-1.16

CES Energy Solutions has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Nine Energy Service. Nine Energy Service is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than CES Energy Solutions, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

42.9% of CES Energy Solutions shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 57.6% of Nine Energy Service shares are owned by institutional investors. 6.2% of Nine Energy Service shares are owned by 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

CES Energy Solutions beats Nine Energy Service on 5 of the 8 factors compared between the two stocks.

About CES Energy Solutions

CES Energy Solutions Corp., together with its subsidiaries, engages in design, implement, and manufacture of advanced consumable fluids and specialty chemicals in the United States and Canada. The company provides solutions for drill-bit, point of completion and stimulation, wellhead and pump-jack, and pipeline and midstream markets. Its solutions include corrosion inhibitors, demulsifiers, H2S scavengers, paraffin control products, surfactants, scale inhibitors, biocides, and other specialty products. The company also designs and implements drilling fluid systems and completion solutions for oil and natural gas producers; designs and manufactures production and specialty chemicals for use in the oil and natural gas production and industrial markets; designs, blends, and sells specialty drilling fluids; designs, blends, and sells simulation and production chemicals for oil and gas producers; and operates trucks and trailers to transport drilling fluids to operators in the oil and gas industry. In addition, it provides environmental consulting, water management and transfer services, and drilling fluids waste disposal services; and laboratory services. The company was formerly known as Canadian Energy Services & Technology Corp. and changed its name to CES Energy Solutions Corp. in June 2017. CES Energy Solutions Corp. was incorporated in 1986 and is headquartered in Calgary, Canada.

About Nine Energy Service

Nine Energy Service, Inc. operates as an onshore completion services provider that targets unconventional oil and gas resource development in North American basins and internationally. It offers cementing services, including blending high-grade cement and water with various solid and liquid additives to create a cement slurry that is pumped between the casing and the wellbore of the well. The company also provides open hole and cemented completion tool products, such as liner hangers and accessories, fracture isolation packers, frac sleeves, stage one prep tools, casing flotation tools, specialty open hole float equipment, disk subs, composite cement retainers, and centralizers that provide pinpoint frac sleeve system technologies. In addition, it offers wireline services consisting of plug-and-perf completions, which is a multistage well completion technique for cased-hole wells that consists of deploying perforating guns and isolation tools to a specified depth; and coiled tubing services, which perform wellbore intervention operations utilizing a continuous steel pipe that is transported to the wellsite wound on a large spool. The company was formerly known as NSC-Tripoint, Inc. and changed its name to Nine Energy Service, Inc. in October 2011. Nine Energy Service, Inc. was incorporated in 2011 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.