Critical Review: Orion Office REIT (NYSE:ONL) & Acadia Realty Trust (NYSE:AKR)

Acadia Realty Trust (NYSE:AKR) and Orion Office REIT (NYSE:ONL) are both finance companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, valuation, risk, profitability, analyst recommendations, earnings and institutional ownership.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings and recommmendations for Acadia Realty Trust and Orion Office REIT, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Acadia Realty Trust	0	2	2	0	2.50
Orion Office REIT	0	1	0	0	2.00

Acadia Realty Trust currently has a consensus price target of $23.00, indicating a potential upside of 0.34%. Given Acadia Realty Trust’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Acadia Realty Trust is more favorable than Orion Office REIT.

Risk and Volatility

Acadia Realty Trust has a beta of 1.47, suggesting that its stock price is 47% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Orion Office REIT has a beta of 1.07, suggesting that its stock price is 7% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Acadia Realty Trust and Orion Office REIT’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Acadia Realty Trust	3.07%	0.48%	0.25%
Orion Office REIT	-50.76%	-10.28%	-6.26%

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Acadia Realty Trust and Orion Office REIT”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Acadia Realty Trust	$338.69 million	8.10	$19.87 million	$0.09	254.70
Orion Office REIT	$195.04 million	1.11	-$57.30 million	($1.54)	-2.51

Acadia Realty Trust has higher revenue and earnings than Orion Office REIT. Orion Office REIT is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Acadia Realty Trust, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

97.7% of Acadia Realty Trust shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 80.0% of Orion Office REIT shares are owned by institutional investors. 2.8% of Acadia Realty Trust shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.2% of Orion Office REIT shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Dividends

Acadia Realty Trust pays an annual dividend of $0.76 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.3%. Orion Office REIT pays an annual dividend of $0.40 per share and has a dividend yield of 10.4%. Acadia Realty Trust pays out 844.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Orion Office REIT pays out -26.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Orion Office REIT is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Summary

Acadia Realty Trust beats Orion Office REIT on 14 of the 16 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Acadia Realty Trust

Acadia Realty Trust is an equity real estate investment trust focused on delivering long-term, profitable growth via its dual Core Portfolio and Fund operating platforms and its disciplined, location-driven investment strategy. Acadia Realty Trust is accomplishing this goal by building a best-in-class core real estate portfolio with meaningful concentrations of assets in the nation's most dynamic corridors; making profitable opportunistic and value-add investments through its series of discretionary, institutional funds; and maintaining a strong balance sheet.

About Orion Office REIT

Orion Office REIT specializes in the ownership, acquisition and management of a diversified portfolio of mission-critical and corporate headquarters office buildings in high-quality suburban markets across the U.S. The portfolio is leased primarily on a single-tenant net lease basis to creditworthy tenants. The company's team of experienced industry leaders employs a proven, cycle-tested investment evaluation framework which serves as the lens through which capital allocation decisions are made for the current portfolio and future acquisitions.