Clean Harbors (NYSE:CLH) versus Waste Connections (NYSE:WCN) Head-To-Head Comparison

Waste Connections (NYSE:WCN) and Clean Harbors (NYSE:CLH) are both large-cap business services companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, profitability, analyst recommendations, valuation, risk, dividends and institutional ownership.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and recommmendations for Waste Connections and Clean Harbors, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Waste Connections	1	3	14	5	3.00
Clean Harbors	1	4	7	1	2.62

Waste Connections currently has a consensus target price of $210.00, indicating a potential upside of 24.18%. Clean Harbors has a consensus target price of $257.73, indicating a potential upside of 23.00%. Given Waste Connections’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Waste Connections is more favorable than Clean Harbors.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

86.1% of Waste Connections shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 90.4% of Clean Harbors shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.3% of Waste Connections shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 5.6% of Clean Harbors shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Waste Connections and Clean Harbors”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Waste Connections	$9.35 billion	4.63	$617.57 million	$2.40	70.47
Clean Harbors	$5.96 billion	1.88	$402.30 million	$7.21	29.06

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

Risk & Volatility

Waste Connections has a beta of 0.6, meaning that its share price is 40% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Clean Harbors has a beta of 1.16, meaning that its share price is 16% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Waste Connections and Clean Harbors’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Waste Connections	6.65%	16.07%	6.37%
Clean Harbors	6.51%	14.61%	5.25%

Summary

Waste Connections beats Clean Harbors on 11 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Waste Connections

Waste Connections, Inc. provides non-hazardous waste collection, transfer, disposal, and resource recovery services in the United States and Canada. It offers collection services to residential, commercial, municipal, industrial, and exploration and production (E&P) customers; landfill disposal services; and recycling services for various recyclable materials, including compost, cardboard, mixed paper, plastic containers, glass bottles, and ferrous and aluminum metals. The company owns and operates transfer stations that receive compact and/or load waste to be transported to landfills or treatment facilities through truck, rail, or barge; and intermodal services for the rail haul movement of cargo and solid waste containers in the Pacific Northwest through a network of intermodal facilities. In addition, it provides E&P waste treatment, recovery, and disposal services for waste resulting from oil and natural gas exploration and production activity, such as drilling fluids, drill cuttings, completion fluids, and flowback water; production wastes and produced water during a well's operating life; contaminated soils that require treatment during site reclamation; and substances, which require clean-up after a spill, reserve pit clean-up, or pipeline rupture. Further, the company offers leasing services to its customers. Waste Connections, Inc. was founded in 1997 and is based in Woodbridge, Canada.

About Clean Harbors

Clean Harbors, Inc. provides environmental and industrial services in the United States and internationally. The company operates through two segments, Environmental Services and Safety-Kleen Sustainability Solutions. The Environmental Services segment collects, transports, treats, and disposes hazardous and non-hazardous waste, such as resource recovery, physical treatment, fuel blending, incineration, landfill disposal, wastewater treatment, lab chemicals disposal, and explosives management services; and offers CleanPack services, including collection, identification, categorization, specialized packaging, transportation, and disposal of laboratory chemicals and household hazardous waste. This segment also provides industrial maintenance and specialty industrial services; and utilizes specialty equipment and resources that performs field services. The Safety-Kleen Sustainability Solutions segment provides pickup and transportation services for hazardous and non-hazardous containerized waste for recycling or disposal; machine cleaning and maintenance, and disposal and replenishment of clean solvent or aqueous fluids; and vacuum services to remove solids, residual oily water, and sludge and other fluids from customers' oil/water separators, sumps, and collection tanks, as well as removes and collects waste fluids found at large and small industrial locations, including metal fabricators, auto maintenance providers, and general manufacturers. This segment also manufactures, formulates, packages, distributes, and markets lubricants and other automotive products. Clean Harbors, Inc. was incorporated in 1980 and is headquartered in Norwell, Massachusetts.