Comparing American Tower (NYSE:AMT) & Global Self Storage (NASDAQ:SELF)

Global Self Storage (NASDAQ:SELF) and American Tower (NYSE:AMT) are both real estate companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, valuation, profitability, earnings and risk.

Dividends

Global Self Storage pays an annual dividend of $0.29 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.9%. American Tower pays an annual dividend of $7.16 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.9%. Global Self Storage pays out 161.1% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. American Tower pays out 98.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. American Tower has increased its dividend for 12 consecutive years.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings and price targets for Global Self Storage and American Tower, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Global Self Storage	0	1	0	0	2.00
American Tower	0	2	17	1	2.95

American Tower has a consensus target price of $215.00, suggesting a potential upside of 16.06%. Given American Tower’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe American Tower is more favorable than Global Self Storage.

Profitability

This table compares Global Self Storage and American Tower’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Global Self Storage	16.64%	4.57%	3.32%
American Tower	31.08%	32.76%	5.36%

Insider and Institutional Ownership

28.9% of Global Self Storage shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 92.7% of American Tower shares are held by institutional investors. 10.7% of Global Self Storage shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.1% of American Tower shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Global Self Storage and American Tower”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Global Self Storage	$12.77 million	4.39	$2.04 million	$0.18	27.28
American Tower	$10.64 billion	8.11	$2.53 billion	$7.27	25.48

American Tower has higher revenue and earnings than Global Self Storage. American Tower is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Global Self Storage, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Risk & Volatility

Global Self Storage has a beta of -0.02, indicating that its share price is 102% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, American Tower has a beta of 0.88, indicating that its share price is 12% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

American Tower beats Global Self Storage on 15 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Global Self Storage

Global Self Storage is a self-administered and self-managed REIT that owns, operates, manages, acquires, and redevelops self-storage properties. The company's self-storage properties are designed to offer affordable, easily accessible and secure storage space for residential and commercial customers. Through its wholly owned subsidiaries, the company owns and/or manages 13 self-storage properties in Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Oklahoma.

About American Tower

American Tower, one of the largest global REITs, is a leading independent owner, operator and developer of multitenant communications real estate with a portfolio of over 224,000 communications sites and a highly interconnected footprint of U.S. data center facilities.