Iron Mountain (NYSE:IRM) vs. UDR (NYSE:UDR) Critical Analysis

UDR (NYSE:UDR) and Iron Mountain (NYSE:IRM) are both large-cap finance companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, profitability, earnings, institutional ownership, risk, analyst recommendations and valuation.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations and price targets for UDR and Iron Mountain, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
UDR	1	9	7	0	2.35
Iron Mountain	0	0	7	1	3.13

UDR presently has a consensus price target of $46.69, suggesting a potential upside of 11.61%. Iron Mountain has a consensus price target of $121.29, suggesting a potential upside of 22.04%. Given Iron Mountain’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Iron Mountain is more favorable than UDR.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

97.8% of UDR shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 80.1% of Iron Mountain shares are held by institutional investors. 3.4% of UDR shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 2.1% of Iron Mountain shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares UDR and Iron Mountain”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
UDR	$1.68 billion	8.25	$89.58 million	$0.35	119.51
Iron Mountain	$6.27 billion	4.68	$180.16 million	$0.41	242.39

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

Profitability

This table compares UDR and Iron Mountain’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
UDR	5.36%	2.65%	0.86%
Iron Mountain	2.95%	-401.83%	2.87%

Dividends

UDR pays an annual dividend of $1.72 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.1%. Iron Mountain pays an annual dividend of $3.14 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.2%. UDR pays out 491.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Iron Mountain pays out 765.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. UDR has increased its dividend for 15 consecutive years and Iron Mountain has increased its dividend for 3 consecutive years. UDR is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

Volatility & Risk

UDR has a beta of 0.84, suggesting that its stock price is 16% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Iron Mountain has a beta of 1.08, suggesting that its stock price is 8% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

UDR beats Iron Mountain on 9 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About UDR

UDR, Inc. (NYSE: UDR), an S&P 500 company, is a leading multifamily real estate investment trust with a demonstrated performance history of delivering superior and dependable returns by successfully managing, buying, selling, developing and redeveloping attractive real estate communities in targeted U.S. markets. As of December 31, 2023, UDR owned or had an ownership position in 60,336 apartment homes including 359 homes under development. For over 51 years, UDR has delivered long-term value to shareholders, the best standard of service to Residents and the highest quality experience for Associates.

About Iron Mountain

Iron Mountain Incorporated (NYSE: IRM) is a global leader in information management services. Founded in 1951 and trusted by more than 240,000 customers worldwide, Iron Mountain serves to protect and elevate the power of our customers’ work. Through a range of offerings including digital transformation, data centers, secure records storage, information management, asset lifecycle management, secure destruction and art storage and logistics, Iron Mountain helps businesses bring light to their dark data, enabling customers to unlock value and intelligence from their stored digital and physical assets at speed and with security, while helping them meet their environmental goals.