Analyzing Iron Mountain (NYSE:IRM) & Lamar Advertising (NASDAQ:LAMR)

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

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent recommendations for Iron Mountain and Lamar Advertising, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Iron Mountain	0	0	4	0	3.00
Lamar Advertising	0	2	1	0	2.33

Iron Mountain presently has a consensus price target of $65.75, indicating a potential upside of 3.36%. Lamar Advertising has a consensus price target of $108.67, indicating a potential upside of 18.79%. Given Lamar Advertising’s higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Lamar Advertising is more favorable than Iron Mountain.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

76.9% of Iron Mountain shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 79.8% of Lamar Advertising shares are owned by institutional investors. 2.2% of Iron Mountain shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 14.9% of Lamar Advertising shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Iron Mountain and Lamar Advertising’s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Iron Mountain	$5.10 billion	3.64	$556.98 million	$1.30	48.93
Lamar Advertising	$2.08 billion	4.49	$438.65 million	$4.11	22.26

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

Risk and Volatility

Iron Mountain has a beta of 0.93, meaning that its stock price is 7% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Lamar Advertising has a beta of 1.38, meaning that its stock price is 38% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Dividends

Iron Mountain pays an annual dividend of $2.47 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.9%. Lamar Advertising pays an annual dividend of $5.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.5%. Iron Mountain pays out 190.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Lamar Advertising pays out 121.7% 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 1 consecutive years and Lamar Advertising has increased its dividend for 3 consecutive years. Lamar Advertising is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

Profitability

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

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Iron Mountain	9.42%	116.19%	3.81%
Lamar Advertising	20.19%	34.91%	6.52%

Summary

Lamar Advertising beats Iron Mountain on 11 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Iron Mountain

Iron Mountain Incorporated (NYSE: IRM) is a global leader in innovative storage, data center infrastructure, asset lifecycle management and information management services. Founded in 1951 and trusted by more than 225,000 customers worldwide, Iron Mountain helps customers CLIMB HIGHER to transform their businesses. 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 Lamar Advertising

Lamar Advertising Company operates as an outdoor advertising company in North America. It operates approximately 363,000 displays across the United States and Canada. It offers advertisers a range of billboard, interstate logo, transit, and airport advertising formats helping local businesses and national brands. The company was founded in 1902 and is based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.