Cork company comparison

I hope not to bore readers with another post on Corticeira Amorim but I wanted to do a side by side comparison with a competitor, French company Oeneo.  Just as a side note I'm expecting to have a much longer post ready later this week for readers who are looking for a deeper company analysis.

As I posted here and here Corticeira Amorim produces cork products including wine cork stoppers, cork flooring, insulation, and other cork products.  While Corticeira is a hidden champion this doesn't mean that they have a monopoly on the cork market, one company they share the wine stopper market with is Oeneo.

A bit of background, Oeneo considers itself a wine products company with a division in the corking business, different than Corticeira who considers themselves a cork company.  Either way I think the comparison is fair.

I like doing comparisons like this and probably don't do them often enough but they highlight important differences.  The biggest item that stands out to me is that Oeneo has a 7.21% profit margin vs the 4.5% margin of Corticeira.  On the other hand Corticeira appears more undervalued with a lower P/E and lower P/B.

The question an investor needs to ask themselves before investing in corks or wine making is would they rather pay more for a company with higher margins or a less profitably company that is selling at a cheaper price?  Or to flip it around, does a 7.2% profit margin vs a 4.5% profit margin justify an almost double P/E?

Disclosure: Long Corticeira Amorim