Iron Mountain (IRM) and Its Peers Critical Review

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

Profitability

This table compares Iron Mountain and its rivals’ 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	-3.94%	-3.35%	2.14%

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Iron Mountain and its rivals gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Iron Mountain	$6.90 billion	$144.59 million	87.47
Iron Mountain Competitors	$2.58 billion	$596.00 million	28.41

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

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations and price targets for Iron Mountain and its rivals, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Iron Mountain	0	2	4	0	2.67
Iron Mountain Competitors	500	2677	3532	187	2.49

Iron Mountain presently has a consensus target price of $135.17, indicating a potential upside of 10.38%. As a group, “Specialized REITs” companies have a potential upside of 13.91%. Given Iron Mountain’s rivals higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Iron Mountain has less favorable growth aspects than its rivals.

Institutional and Insider 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 insiders. Comparatively, 7.6% of shares of all “Specialized REITs” companies are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Risk and Volatility

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

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 3.4% and pay out 120.7% of their earnings in the form of a dividend. Iron Mountain has increased its dividend for 3 consecutive years. Iron Mountain lags its rivals as a dividend stock, given its lower dividend yield and higher payout ratio.

Summary

Iron Mountain beats its rivals 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.