Reviewing UDR (NYSE:UDR) and Iron Mountain (NYSE:IRM)

Iron Mountain (NYSE:IRM) and UDR (NYSE:UDR) are both large-cap business services companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, earnings, institutional ownership, risk, dividends, analyst recommendations and profitability.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current recommendations for Iron Mountain and UDR, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Iron Mountain	0	0	7	1	3.13
UDR	1	9	7	0	2.35

Iron Mountain presently has a consensus target price of $121.29, indicating a potential upside of 22.04%. UDR has a consensus target price of $46.69, indicating a potential upside of 11.61%. Given Iron Mountain’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Iron Mountain is more favorable than UDR.

Volatility & Risk

Iron Mountain has a beta of 1.08, indicating that its share price is 8% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, UDR has a beta of 0.84, indicating that its share price is 16% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation and Earnings

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

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Iron Mountain	$6.27 billion	4.68	$180.16 million	$0.41	242.39
UDR	$1.68 billion	8.25	$89.58 million	$0.35	119.51

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

Dividends

Iron Mountain pays an annual dividend of $3.14 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.2%. UDR pays an annual dividend of $1.72 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.1%. Iron Mountain pays out 765.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. UDR pays out 491.4% 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 raised its dividend for 3 consecutive years and UDR has raised its dividend for 15 consecutive years. UDR is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

Profitability

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

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Iron Mountain	2.95%	-401.83%	2.87%
UDR	5.36%	2.65%	0.86%

Institutional and Insider Ownership

80.1% of Iron Mountain shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 97.8% of UDR shares are owned by institutional investors. 2.1% of Iron Mountain shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 3.4% of UDR shares are owned by 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

UDR beats Iron Mountain on 9 of the 17 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 UDR

UDR, Inc. (NYSE: UDR), an S&P 500 company, is a leading multifamily real estate investment trust with a demonstrated performance history of delivering superior and dependable returns by successfully managing, buying, selling, developing and redeveloping attractive real estate communities in targeted U.S. markets. As of December 31, 2023, UDR owned or had an ownership position in 60,336 apartment homes including 359 homes under development. For over 51 years, UDR has delivered long-term value to shareholders, the best standard of service to Residents and the highest quality experience for Associates.