Reviewing Iron Mountain (IRM) and The Competition

Iron Mountain (NYSE:IRM) is one of 35 public companies in the “Specialized REITs” industry, but how does it weigh in compared to its competitors? We will compare Iron Mountain to related companies based on the strength of its dividends, valuation, institutional ownership, risk, earnings, profitability and analyst recommendations.

Profitability

This table compares Iron Mountain and its competitors’ 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%
Iron Mountain Competitors	-3.83%	-3.33%	2.14%

Insider and Institutional Ownership

80.1% of Iron Mountain shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 78.0% of shares of all “Specialized REITs” companies are held by institutional investors. 1.7% of Iron Mountain shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 7.6% of shares of all “Specialized REITs” companies are held 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.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Iron Mountain and its competitors gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Iron Mountain	$6.90 billion	$144.59 million	89.35
Iron Mountain Competitors	$2.61 billion	$596.00 million	28.81

Iron Mountain has higher revenue, but lower earnings than its competitors. Iron Mountain is trading at a higher price-to-earnings ratio than its competitors, indicating that it is currently more expensive than other companies in its industry.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current recommendations for Iron Mountain and its competitors, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Iron Mountain	0	1	5	0	2.83
Iron Mountain Competitors	502	2679	3535	187	2.49

Iron Mountain presently has a consensus target price of $135.17, suggesting a potential upside of 8.05%. As a group, “Specialized REITs” companies have a potential upside of 11.41%. Given Iron Mountain’s competitors higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Iron Mountain has less favorable growth aspects than its competitors.

Dividends

Iron Mountain pays an annual dividend of $3.46 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.8%. 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. As a group, “Specialized REITs” companies pay a dividend yield of 3.3% and pay out 120.6% of their earnings in the form of a dividend. Iron Mountain has raised its dividend for 3 consecutive years. Iron Mountain lags its competitors as a dividend stock, given its lower dividend yield and higher payout ratio.

Volatility & Risk

Iron Mountain has a beta of 1.2, meaning that its share price is 20% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Iron Mountain’s competitors have a beta of 0.96, meaning that their average share price is 4% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Iron Mountain beats its competitors on 8 of the 15 factors compared.

Iron Mountain Company Profile

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.