Reviewing Regency Centers (NASDAQ:REG) and Iron Mountain (NYSE:IRM)

Regency Centers (NASDAQ:REG) and Iron Mountain (NYSE:IRM) are both large-cap finance companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, institutional ownership, valuation, profitability, risk, analyst recommendations and dividends.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations for Regency Centers and Iron Mountain, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Regency Centers	0	1	11	0	2.92
Iron Mountain	1	0	6	0	2.71

Regency Centers currently has a consensus price target of $71.17, indicating a potential upside of 1.07%. Iron Mountain has a consensus price target of $95.29, indicating a potential downside of 12.10%. Given Regency Centers’ stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Regency Centers is more favorable than Iron Mountain.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Regency Centers and Iron Mountain’s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Regency Centers	$1.32 billion	9.66	$364.56 million	$2.05	34.35
Iron Mountain	$5.82 billion	5.46	$184.23 million	$0.66	164.24

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

Profitability

This table compares Regency Centers and Iron Mountain’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Regency Centers	27.60%	5.63%	3.13%
Iron Mountain	3.94%	595.44%	3.06%

Volatility and Risk

Regency Centers has a beta of 1.21, suggesting that its share price is 21% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Iron Mountain has a beta of 0.98, suggesting that its share price is 2% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Dividends

Regency Centers pays an annual dividend of $2.68 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.8%. Iron Mountain pays an annual dividend of $2.86 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.6%. Regency Centers pays out 130.7% 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 433.3% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Regency Centers is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

96.1% of Regency Centers shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 80.1% of Iron Mountain shares are held by institutional investors. 1.0% of Regency Centers shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 2.1% of Iron Mountain shares are held by company 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.

Summary

Regency Centers beats Iron Mountain on 12 of the 16 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Regency Centers

Regency Centers is a preeminent national owner, operator, and developer of shopping centers located in suburban trade areas with compelling demographics. Our portfolio includes thriving properties merchandised with highly productive grocers, restaurants, service providers, and best-in-class retailers that connect to their neighborhoods, communities, and customers. Operating as a fully integrated real estate company, Regency Centers is a qualified real estate investment trust (REIT) that is self-administered, self-managed, and an S&P 500 Index member.

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.