Ingevity (NGVT) Up 20% In A Year: What's Driving The Stock?

Shares of Ingevity Corporation (NYSE:NGVT) have gained around 20% over a year. The company has also outpaced its industry’s rise of roughly 8% over the same time frame.

Ingevity, a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) stock, has a market cap of roughly $4 billion and average volume of shares traded in the last three months was around 255.2K. The company has an expected long-term earnings per share growth rate of 12%, above the industry average of 11.4%.

Let’s take a look into the factors that are driving this producer of specialty chemicals and activated carbon materials.

What's Going in NGVT’s Favor?

Sustained earnings outperformance, upbeat outlook, strong execution and organic and inorganic initiatives have contributed to the growth story of Ingevity.

The company has an impressive earnings surprise history, having outpaced the Zacks Consensus Estimate in each of the trailing four quarters. In this timeframe, the company delivered a positive average earnings surprise of 16.5%.

Ingevity, last month, reaffirmed its sales guidance of between $1.30 billion and $1.36 billion for 2019. It also backed its adjusted EBITDA guidance for the year in the band of $390-$410 million.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings for Ingevity for 2019 is currently pegged at $4.79 per share, reflecting an expected year-over-year growth of 16%. Earnings are also expected to register a 21.8% growth in 2020.

Ingevity is gaining from strength in oilfield business, growth in activated carbon demand and focus on high margin application areas. The acquisition of the Capa caprolactone business is also expected to contribute to the growth of the company’s revenues and earnings in 2019.

The Capa caprolactone buyout and sales growth in oilfield applications boosted revenues in the company’s Performance Chemicals division in the first quarter. The company is working to drive margins and profitability in this unit and integrate the acquired engineered polymers product line.

Ingevity is also benefiting from its buyout of Georgia-Pacific’s pine chemicals business. The acquisition is contributing to strong growth in sales of oilfield technology products in the Performance Chemicals division.

Sustained adoption of the company’s solutions geared to meet the U.S. EPA Tier 3 and California LEV III emission regulations is also contributing to the growth in the Performance Materials segment.

Ingevity is poised to benefit from an expected rise in activated carbon demand on the back of the adoption of China’s new gasoline emissions standards (the China 6 national standard). The company is expected to gain strong foothold as China gradually shifts to new standards.

Ingevity Corporation Price and Consensus

Ingevity Corporation price-consensus-chart | Ingevity Corporation Quote

Stocks Worth a Look

Better-ranked stocks worth considering in the basic materials space include Materion Corporation (NYSE:MTRN) , Flexible Solutions International Inc (NYSE:FSI) and Innospec Inc. (NASDAQ:IOSP) .

Materion has an expected earnings growth rate of 27.3% for the current year and carries a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). The company’s shares have gained around 22% over the past year. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Flexible Solutions has an expected earnings growth rate of 342.9% for the current fiscal year and carries a Zacks Rank #1. Its shares have surged around 144% in the past year.

Innospec has an expected earnings growth rate of 6.6% for the current year and carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). Its shares have gained roughly 9% in the past year.

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