Gladstone Land (NASDAQ:LAND – Get Free Report) and SBA Communications (NASDAQ:SBAC – Get Free Report) are both real estate companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, dividends, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, valuation, risk and earnings.
Risk & Volatility
Gladstone Land has a beta of 1.1, indicating that its share price is 10% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, SBA Communications has a beta of 1, indicating that its share price has a similar volatility profile to the S&P 500.
Dividends
Gladstone Land pays an annual dividend of $0.56 per share and has a dividend yield of 7.6%. SBA Communications pays an annual dividend of $5.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.7%. Gladstone Land pays out -101.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. SBA Communications pays out 53.9% 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. Gladstone Land has increased its dividend for 2 consecutive years and SBA Communications has increased its dividend for 6 consecutive years. Gladstone Land is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.
Analyst Recommendations
This is a summary of recent recommendations for Gladstone Land and SBA Communications, as provided by MarketBeat.
| Sell Ratings | Hold Ratings | Buy Ratings | Strong Buy Ratings | Rating Score | |
| Gladstone Land | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 2.25 |
| SBA Communications | 0 | 10 | 8 | 0 | 2.44 |
Gladstone Land currently has a consensus target price of $10.00, suggesting a potential upside of 34.95%. SBA Communications has a consensus target price of $226.53, suggesting a potential upside of 21.04%. Given Gladstone Land’s higher possible upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Gladstone Land is more favorable than SBA Communications.
Profitability
This table compares Gladstone Land and SBA Communications’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.
| Net Margins | Return on Equity | Return on Assets | |
| Gladstone Land | -7.31% | -0.96% | -0.53% |
| SBA Communications | 34.51% | -20.67% | 8.56% |
Institutional and Insider Ownership
53.6% of Gladstone Land shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 97.3% of SBA Communications shares are owned by institutional investors. 6.1% of Gladstone Land shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 9.5% of SBA Communications shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
Earnings and Valuation
This table compares Gladstone Land and SBA Communications”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.
| Gross Revenue | Price/Sales Ratio | Net Income | Earnings Per Share | Price/Earnings Ratio | |
| Gladstone Land | $88.48 million | 3.61 | $13.53 million | ($0.55) | -13.47 |
| SBA Communications | $2.87 billion | 6.92 | $1.05 billion | $9.28 | 20.17 |
SBA Communications has higher revenue and earnings than Gladstone Land. Gladstone Land is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than SBA Communications, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Summary
SBA Communications beats Gladstone Land on 12 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks.
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.
About SBA Communications
SBA Communications Corporation is a leading independent owner and operator of wireless communications infrastructure including towers, buildings, rooftops, distributed antenna systems (DAS) and small cells. With a portfolio of more than 39,000 communications sites throughout the Americas, Africa and in Asia, SBA is listed on NASDAQ under the symbol SBAC. Our organization is part of the S&P 500 and is one of the top Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) by market capitalization.
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