Critical Review: Mesabi Trust (MSB) & Its Rivals

Mesabi Trust (NYSE:MSB) is one of 1,987 publicly-traded companies in the “Metals & Mining” industry, but how does it weigh in compared to its peers? We will compare Mesabi Trust to related companies based on the strength of its risk, profitability, institutional ownership, earnings, valuation, dividends and analyst recommendations.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations for Mesabi Trust and its peers, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Mesabi Trust	0	1	0	0	2.00
Mesabi Trust Competitors	6328	22463	32093	1767	2.47

As a group, “Metals & Mining” companies have a potential upside of 17.15%. Given Mesabi Trust’s peers stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Mesabi Trust has less favorable growth aspects than its peers.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Mesabi Trust and its peers gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Mesabi Trust	$17.52 million	$13.87 million	39.88
Mesabi Trust Competitors	$4.67 billion	$277.91 million	-28.71

Mesabi Trust’s peers have higher revenue and earnings than Mesabi Trust. Mesabi Trust is trading at a higher price-to-earnings ratio than its peers, indicating that it is currently more expensive than other companies in its industry.

Dividends

Mesabi Trust pays an annual dividend of $0.20 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.0%. Mesabi Trust pays out 40.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. As a group, “Metals & Mining” companies pay a dividend yield of 9.5% and pay out 10.8% of their earnings in the form of a dividend. Mesabi Trust lags its peers as a dividend stock, given its lower dividend yield and higher payout ratio.

Risk and Volatility

Mesabi Trust has a beta of 0.34, suggesting that its share price is 66% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Mesabi Trust’s peers have a beta of 1.02, suggesting that their average share price is 2% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

16.0% of shares of all “Metals & Mining” companies are owned by institutional investors. 0.3% of Mesabi Trust shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 17.7% of shares of all “Metals & Mining” companies are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares Mesabi Trust and its peers’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Mesabi Trust	54.46%	33.50%	28.16%
Mesabi Trust Competitors	-1,161,736,352,322,426,800.00%	-10.95%	-2.11%

Summary

Mesabi Trust peers beat Mesabi Trust on 11 of the 15 factors compared.

Mesabi Trust Company Profile

Mesabi Trust, a royalty trust, engages in iron ore mining business in the United States. Mesabi Trust was founded in 1961 and is based in New York, New York.