Financial Survey: OUTFRONT Media (NYSE:OUT) vs. Iron Mountain (NYSE:IRM)

Iron Mountain (NYSE:IRM) and OUTFRONT Media (NYSE:OUT) are both real estate companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, earnings, dividends, profitability, risk, institutional ownership and analyst recommendations.

Risk & Volatility

Iron Mountain has a beta of 1.2, suggesting that its share price is 20% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, OUTFRONT Media has a beta of 1.49, suggesting that its share price is 49% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

80.1% of Iron Mountain shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.7% of Iron Mountain shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 0.5% of OUTFRONT Media shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Dividends

Iron Mountain pays an annual dividend of $3.46 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.8%. OUTFRONT Media pays an annual dividend of $1.20 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.0%. 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. OUTFRONT Media pays out 86.3% 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. OUTFRONT Media is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings and price targets for Iron Mountain and OUTFRONT Media, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Iron Mountain	0	2	5	0	2.71
OUTFRONT Media	0	1	6	0	2.86

Iron Mountain presently has a consensus target price of $137.67, indicating a potential upside of 12.18%. OUTFRONT Media has a consensus target price of $34.00, indicating a potential upside of 13.01%. Given OUTFRONT Media’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe OUTFRONT Media is more favorable than Iron Mountain.

Profitability

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

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Iron Mountain	5.54%	-85.44%	3.30%
OUTFRONT Media	12.66%	37.44%	4.65%

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Iron Mountain and OUTFRONT Media”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Iron Mountain	$6.90 billion	5.29	$144.59 million	$1.40	87.66
OUTFRONT Media	$1.83 billion	2.89	$147.00 million	$1.39	21.65

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

Summary

OUTFRONT Media beats Iron Mountain on 10 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

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.

About OUTFRONT Media

OUTFRONT Media, Inc. leases advertising space on out-of-home advertising structures and sites. Its inventory consists of billboard displays, which are primarily located on the most heavily traveled highways & roadways, and transit advertising displays operated under exclusive multi-year contracts with municipalities in large cities across the U.S. and Canada. It operates through the U.S. Media and other segments. The U.S. Media segment includes U.S. Billboard and Transit. The company was founded in 1938 and is headquartered in New York, NY.