LXP Industrial Trust (NYSE:LXP) & Sun Communities (NYSE:SUI) Critical Review

LXP Industrial Trust (NYSE:LXP) and Sun Communities (NYSE:SUI) are both finance companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, dividends, profitability, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, risk and valuation.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and target prices for LXP Industrial Trust and Sun Communities, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
LXP Industrial Trust	0	3	4	0	2.57
Sun Communities	1	7	6	0	2.36

LXP Industrial Trust currently has a consensus target price of $54.00, suggesting a potential upside of 4.55%. Sun Communities has a consensus target price of $137.46, suggesting a potential upside of 9.28%. Given Sun Communities’ higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Sun Communities is more favorable than LXP Industrial Trust.

Volatility & Risk

LXP Industrial Trust has a beta of 1.1, meaning that its share price is 10% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Sun Communities has a beta of 0.9, meaning that its share price is 10% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares LXP Industrial Trust and Sun Communities”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
LXP Industrial Trust	$358.46 million	8.52	$44.53 million	$1.90	27.18
Sun Communities	$3.22 billion	4.83	$101.80 million	$7.98	15.76

Sun Communities has higher revenue and earnings than LXP Industrial Trust. Sun Communities is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than LXP Industrial Trust, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

93.5% of LXP Industrial Trust shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 99.6% of Sun Communities shares are owned by institutional investors. 2.6% of LXP Industrial Trust shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 1.8% of Sun Communities shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Dividends

LXP Industrial Trust pays an annual dividend of $0.56 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.1%. Sun Communities pays an annual dividend of $4.16 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.3%. LXP Industrial Trust pays out 29.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Sun Communities pays out 52.1% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. LXP Industrial Trust has raised its dividend for 3 consecutive years and Sun Communities has raised its dividend for 8 consecutive years. Sun Communities is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

Profitability

This table compares LXP Industrial Trust and Sun Communities’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
LXP Industrial Trust	32.19%	5.86%	3.12%
Sun Communities	42.58%	-4.53%	-2.29%

Summary

Sun Communities beats LXP Industrial Trust on 9 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About LXP Industrial Trust

LXP Industrial Trust (NYSE: LXP) is a publicly traded real estate investment trust (REIT) focused on single-tenant industrial real estate investments across the United States. LXP seeks to expand its industrial portfolio through acquisitions, build-to-suit transactions, sale-leaseback transactions, development projects and other transactions.

About Sun Communities

Established in 1975, Sun Communities, Inc. became a publicly owned corporation in December 1993. The Company is a fully integrated REIT listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol: SUI. As of December 31, 2023, the Company owned, operated, or had an interest in a portfolio of 667 developed MH, RV and Marina properties comprising 179,310 developed sites and approximately 48,030 wet slips and dry storage spaces in the U.S., the UK and Canada.