Financial Review: Mesabi Trust (MSB) versus Its Competitors

Mesabi Trust (NYSE:MSB) is one of 1,987 publicly-traded companies in the “Metals & Mining” industry, but how does it contrast to its competitors? We will compare Mesabi Trust to similar businesses based on the strength of its valuation, profitability, risk, institutional ownership, earnings, dividends and analyst recommendations.

Profitability

This table compares Mesabi Trust and its competitors’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Mesabi Trust	54.46%	33.50%	28.16%
Mesabi Trust Competitors	-1,164,884,689,320,590,400.00%	-48.82%	-2.12%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current recommendations and price targets for Mesabi Trust and its competitors, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Mesabi Trust	0	1	0	0	2.00
Mesabi Trust Competitors	6336	22477	32100	1768	2.47

As a group, “Metals & Mining” companies have a potential upside of 17.03%. Given Mesabi Trust’s competitors stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Mesabi Trust has less favorable growth aspects than its competitors.

Dividends

Mesabi Trust pays an annual dividend of $0.20 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.1%. Mesabi Trust pays out 40.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. As a group, “Metals & Mining” companies pay a dividend yield of 9.5% and pay out 10.8% of their earnings in the form of a dividend. Mesabi Trust lags its competitors as a dividend stock, given its lower dividend yield and higher payout ratio.

Volatility & Risk

Mesabi Trust has a beta of 0.32, indicating that its share price is 68% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Mesabi Trust’s competitors have a beta of 1.04, indicating that their average share price is 4% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

16.0% of shares of all “Metals & Mining” companies are held by institutional investors. 0.3% of Mesabi Trust shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 17.7% of shares of all “Metals & Mining” companies are held 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.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Mesabi Trust and its competitors gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Mesabi Trust	$17.52 million	$13.87 million	38.56
Mesabi Trust Competitors	$5.15 billion	$278.45 million	-28.32

Mesabi Trust’s competitors have higher revenue and earnings than Mesabi Trust. Mesabi Trust is trading at a higher price-to-earnings ratio than its competitors, indicating that it is currently more expensive than other companies in its industry.

Summary

Mesabi Trust competitors beat Mesabi Trust on 11 of the 15 factors compared.

About Mesabi Trust

Mesabi Trust, a royalty trust, engages in iron ore mining business in the United States. Mesabi Trust was founded in 1961 and is based in New York, New York.