Diversified Healthcare Trust (NASDAQ:DHC) & Medical Properties Trust (NYSE:MPT) Financial Comparison

Medical Properties Trust (NYSE:MPT) and Diversified Healthcare Trust (NASDAQ:DHC) are both real estate companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, risk, profitability, valuation, dividends, institutional ownership and analyst recommendations.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Medical Properties Trust and Diversified Healthcare Trust”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Medical Properties Trust	$972.02 million	2.54	-$277.05 million	($0.06)	-68.83
Diversified Healthcare Trust	$1.54 billion	1.26	-$285.89 million	($1.11)	-7.21

Medical Properties Trust has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Diversified Healthcare Trust. Medical Properties Trust is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Diversified Healthcare Trust, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Volatility & Risk

Medical Properties Trust has a beta of 1.41, indicating that its stock price is 41% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Diversified Healthcare Trust has a beta of 2.3, indicating that its stock price is 130% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings and recommmendations for Medical Properties Trust and Diversified Healthcare Trust, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Medical Properties Trust	1	1	0	0	1.50
Diversified Healthcare Trust	1	2	2	1	2.50

Medical Properties Trust presently has a consensus price target of $4.50, indicating a potential upside of 8.96%. Diversified Healthcare Trust has a consensus price target of $9.83, indicating a potential upside of 22.92%. Given Diversified Healthcare Trust’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Diversified Healthcare Trust is more favorable than Medical Properties Trust.

Profitability

This table compares Medical Properties Trust and Diversified Healthcare Trust’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Medical Properties Trust	-2.96%	-0.66%	-0.20%
Diversified Healthcare Trust	-17.73%	-16.22%	-6.06%

Insider and Institutional Ownership

71.8% of Medical Properties Trust shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 76.0% of Diversified Healthcare Trust shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.8% of Medical Properties Trust shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 10.2% of Diversified Healthcare Trust shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Dividends

Medical Properties Trust pays an annual dividend of $0.36 per share and has a dividend yield of 8.7%. Diversified Healthcare Trust pays an annual dividend of $0.04 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.5%. Medical Properties Trust pays out -600.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Diversified Healthcare Trust pays out -3.6% 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. Medical Properties Trust is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Summary

Diversified Healthcare Trust beats Medical Properties Trust on 9 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Medical Properties Trust

Medical Properties Trust, Inc. is a self-advised real estate investment trust formed to capitalize on the changing trends in healthcare delivery by acquiring and developing net-leased healthcare facilities. MPT’s financing model allows hospitals and other healthcare facilities to unlock the value of their underlying real estate in order to fund facility improvements, technology upgrades, staff additions and new construction. Facilities include acute care hospitals, inpatient rehabilitation hospitals, long-term acute care hospitals, and other medical and surgical facilities.

About Diversified Healthcare Trust

Diversified Healthcare Trust is a real estate investment trust, which engages in the ownership of senior living communities, medical office buildings, and wellness centers. It operates through the following segments: Office Portfolio, Senior Housing Operating Portfolio (SHOP), and Non-Segment. The Office Portfolio segment consists of medical office properties leased to medical providers and other medical related businesses, as well as life science properties leased to biotech laboratories and other similar tenants. The SHOP segment manages senior living communities that offers short term and long term residential care, and other services for residents where it pay fees to the operator to manage the communities for its account. The company was founded on December 16, 1998 and is headquartered in Newton, MA.