Analyzing Iron Mountain (NYSE:IRM) and Gladstone Land (NASDAQ:LANDP)

Iron Mountain (NYSE:IRM) and Gladstone Land (NASDAQ:LANDP) are both real estate companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, dividends, risk, institutional ownership, valuation, profitability and analyst recommendations.

Dividends

Iron Mountain pays an annual dividend of $3.46 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.7%. Gladstone Land pays an annual dividend of $1.50 per share and has a dividend yield of 7.1%. 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. Iron Mountain has raised its dividend for 3 consecutive years.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Iron Mountain and Gladstone Land”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Iron Mountain	$6.90 billion	5.59	$144.59 million	$1.40	92.49
Gladstone Land	$88.48 million	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

Iron Mountain has higher revenue and earnings than Gladstone Land.

Profitability

This table compares Iron Mountain and Gladstone Land’s 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%
Gladstone Land	N/A	N/A	N/A

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and price targets for Iron Mountain and Gladstone Land, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Iron Mountain	0	1	5	0	2.83
Gladstone Land	0	0	0	0	0.00

Iron Mountain presently has a consensus price target of $135.17, suggesting a potential upside of 4.38%. Given Iron Mountain’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities analysts plainly believe Iron Mountain is more favorable than Gladstone Land.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

80.1% of Iron Mountain shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.7% of Iron Mountain shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Iron Mountain beats Gladstone Land on 9 of the 12 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Iron Mountain

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.

About Gladstone Land

Founded in 1997, Gladstone Land is a publicly traded real estate investment trust that acquires and owns farmland and farm-related properties located in major agricultural markets in the U.S. and leases its properties to unrelated third-party farmers. The Company, which reports the aggregate fair value of its farmland holdings on a quarterly basis, currently owns 169 farms, comprised of approximately 116,000 acres in 15 different states and over 45,000 acre-feet of banked water in California, valued at a total of approximately $1.6 billion. Gladstone Land's farms are predominantly located in regions where its tenants are able to grow fresh produce annual row crops, such as berries and vegetables, which are generally planted and harvested annually. The Company also owns farms growing permanent crops, such as almonds, apples, cherries, figs, lemons, olives, pistachios, and other orchards, as well as blueberry groves and vineyards, which are generally planted every 20-plus years and harvested annually. Approximately 40% of the Company's fresh produce acreage is either organic or in transition to become organic, and over 10% of its permanent crop acreage falls into this category. The Company may also acquire property related to farming, such as cooling facilities, processing buildings, packaging facilities, and distribution centers. Gladstone Land pays monthly distributions to its stockholders and has paid 129 consecutive monthly cash distributions on its common stock since its initial public offering in January 2013. The Company has increased its common distributions 32 times over the prior 35 quarters, and the current per-share distribution on its common stock is $0.0464 per month, or $0.5568 per year.