Head-To-Head Comparison: Global Self Storage (NASDAQ:SELF) versus Iron Mountain (NYSE:IRM)

Global Self Storage (NASDAQ:SELF) and Iron Mountain (NYSE:IRM) are both real estate companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, profitability, institutional ownership, risk, analyst recommendations, earnings and valuation.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings for Global Self Storage and Iron Mountain, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Global Self Storage	0	1	0	0	2.00
Iron Mountain	0	2	5	0	2.71

Iron Mountain has a consensus target price of $139.83, indicating a potential upside of 21.87%. Given Iron Mountain’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Iron Mountain is more favorable than Global Self Storage.

Risk and Volatility

Global Self Storage has a beta of -0.02, indicating that its share price is 102% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Iron Mountain has a beta of 1.17, indicating that its share price is 17% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

28.9% of Global Self Storage shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 80.1% of Iron Mountain shares are owned by institutional investors. 10.7% of Global Self Storage shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.7% of Iron Mountain shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Dividends

Global Self Storage pays an annual dividend of $0.29 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.9%. Iron Mountain pays an annual dividend of $3.45 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.0%. Global Self Storage pays out 161.1% 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 pays out 246.4% 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 increased its dividend for 3 consecutive years. Global Self Storage is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Profitability

This table compares Global Self Storage and Iron Mountain’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Global Self Storage	16.64%	4.57%	3.32%
Iron Mountain	5.54%	-85.44%	3.30%

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Global Self Storage and Iron Mountain”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Global Self Storage	$12.77 million	4.42	$2.04 million	$0.18	27.44
Iron Mountain	$7.56 billion	4.52	$144.59 million	$1.40	81.96

Iron Mountain has higher revenue and earnings than Global Self Storage. Global Self Storage is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Iron Mountain, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

Iron Mountain beats Global Self Storage on 11 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Global Self Storage

Global Self Storage is a self-administered and self-managed REIT that owns, operates, manages, acquires, and redevelops self-storage properties. The company's self-storage properties are designed to offer affordable, easily accessible and secure storage space for residential and commercial customers. Through its wholly owned subsidiaries, the company owns and/or manages 13 self-storage properties in Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Oklahoma.

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.