Contrasting Iron Mountain (NYSE:IRM) and Smartstop Self Storage REIT (NYSE:SMA)

Smartstop Self Storage REIT (NYSE:SMA) and Iron Mountain (NYSE:IRM) are both real estate companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, dividends, institutional ownership, earnings, profitability, risk and valuation.

Risk and Volatility

Smartstop Self Storage REIT has a beta of 0.5, indicating that its share price is 50% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Iron Mountain has a beta of 1.2, indicating that its share price is 20% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Dividends

Smartstop Self Storage REIT pays an annual dividend of $1.63 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.8%. Iron Mountain pays an annual dividend of $3.46 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.8%. Smartstop Self Storage REIT pays out 319.6% 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 247.1% 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 has increased its dividend for 3 consecutive years.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

80.1% of Iron Mountain shares are held by institutional investors. 5.7% of Smartstop Self Storage REIT shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.7% of Iron Mountain shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent recommendations for Smartstop Self Storage REIT and Iron Mountain, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Smartstop Self Storage REIT	1	3	4	2	2.70
Iron Mountain	0	1	5	0	2.83

Smartstop Self Storage REIT currently has a consensus price target of $36.47, indicating a potential upside of 6.29%. Iron Mountain has a consensus price target of $135.17, indicating a potential upside of 10.62%. Given Iron Mountain’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Iron Mountain is more favorable than Smartstop Self Storage REIT.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Smartstop Self Storage REIT and Iron Mountain”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Smartstop Self Storage REIT	$281.14 million	6.76	-$1.55 million	$0.51	67.27
Iron Mountain	$6.90 billion	5.27	$144.59 million	$1.40	87.28

Iron Mountain has higher revenue and earnings than Smartstop Self Storage REIT. Smartstop Self Storage REIT 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 Smartstop Self Storage REIT and Iron Mountain’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Smartstop Self Storage REIT	9.68%	2.33%	1.23%
Iron Mountain	5.54%	-85.44%	3.30%

Summary

Iron Mountain beats Smartstop Self Storage REIT on 12 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Smartstop Self Storage REIT

Symmetry Medical Inc. (Symmetry) is a medical device solutions company, including surgical instruments, orthopedic implants, and sterilization cases and trays. The Company designs, develops and offers worldwide production and supply chain capabilities for these products to customers in the orthopedic industry, and other medical device markets (including but not limited to arthroscopy, dental, laparoscopy, osteobiologic, and endoscopy segments). It also manufactures specialized non-healthcare products, primarily in the aerospace industry. The Company operates in two segments: original equipment manufacturer (OEM) solutions and symmetry surgical. On August 15, 2011, the Company acquired PSC Industries, Inc’s Olsen Medical division. On December 29, 2011 it acquired the surgical instruments product portfolio from Codman & Shurtleff, Inc., a Johnson & Johnson Company.

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.