Critical Comparison: Stag Industrial (NYSE:STAG) and Big Yellow Group (OTCMKTS:BYLOF)

Stag Industrial (NYSE:STAG) and Big Yellow Group (OTCMKTS:BYLOF) are both real estate companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, analyst recommendations, valuation, profitability, dividends, risk and institutional ownership.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations for Stag Industrial and Big Yellow Group, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Stag Industrial	1	6	3	0	2.20
Big Yellow Group	0	1	2	0	2.67

Stag Industrial presently has a consensus target price of $50.50, indicating a potential upside of 35.45%. Given Stag Industrial’s higher possible upside, research analysts clearly believe Stag Industrial is more favorable than Big Yellow Group.

Profitability

This table compares Stag Industrial and Big Yellow Group’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Stag Industrial	28.04%	6.79%	3.43%
Big Yellow Group	N/A	N/A	N/A

Insider and Institutional Ownership

88.7% of Stag Industrial shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 53.1% of Big Yellow Group shares are held by institutional investors. 1.1% of Stag Industrial shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Dividends

Stag Industrial pays an annual dividend of $1.55 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.2%. Big Yellow Group pays an annual dividend of $0.10 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.8%. Stag Industrial pays out 119.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Big Yellow Group pays out 23.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Stag Industrial has raised its dividend for 7 consecutive years. Stag Industrial is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Stag Industrial and Big Yellow Group”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Stag Industrial	$845.18 million	8.51	$273.52 million	$1.30	28.68
Big Yellow Group	N/A	N/A	N/A	$0.43	28.61

Stag Industrial has higher revenue and earnings than Big Yellow Group. Big Yellow Group is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Stag Industrial, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

Stag Industrial beats Big Yellow Group on 12 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Stag Industrial

STAG Industrial, Inc. is a real estate investment company, which engages in acquiring, owning, and managing single-tenant, industrial real estate assets. It offers industrial real estate operating platform to real estate ownership. The company was founded by Benjamin S. Butcher on July 21, 2010 and is headquartered in Boston, MA.

About Big Yellow Group

Big Yellow is the UK's brand leader in self storage. Big Yellow now operates from a platform of 109 stores, including 24 stores branded as Armadillo Self Storage. We have a pipeline of 0.9 million sq ft comprising 13 proposed Big Yellow self storage facilities. The current maximum lettable area of the existing platform (including Armadillo) is 6.4 million sq ft. When fully built out the portfolio will provide approximately 7.3 million sq ft of flexible storage space. 99% of our stores and sites by value are held freehold and long leasehold, with the remaining 1% short leasehold. The Group has pioneered the development of the latest generation of self storage facilities, which utilise state of the art technology and are located in high profile, accessible, main road locations. Our focus on the location and visibility of our stores, with excellent customer service, a market-leading online platform, and significant and increasing investment in sustainability, has created in Big Yellow the most recognised brand name in the UK self storage industry.