Head-To-Head Contrast: American Healthcare REIT (NYSE:AHR) & Medical Properties Trust (NYSE:MPT)

Medical Properties Trust (NYSE:MPT) and American Healthcare REIT (NYSE:AHR) are both real estate companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, analyst recommendations, earnings, valuation, institutional ownership, dividends and profitability.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations and price targets for Medical Properties Trust and American Healthcare REIT, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Medical Properties Trust	1	1	0	0	1.50
American Healthcare REIT	0	2	12	0	2.86

Medical Properties Trust presently has a consensus target price of $4.50, indicating a potential upside of 7.40%. American Healthcare REIT has a consensus target price of $60.42, indicating a potential upside of 11.26%. Given American Healthcare REIT’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe American Healthcare REIT is more favorable than Medical Properties Trust.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Medical Properties Trust and American Healthcare REIT”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Medical Properties Trust	$972.02 million	2.57	-$277.05 million	($0.06)	-69.83
American Healthcare REIT	$2.50 billion	4.18	$69.81 million	$0.68	79.86

American Healthcare REIT has higher revenue and earnings than Medical Properties Trust. Medical Properties Trust is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than American Healthcare REIT, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Medical Properties Trust and American Healthcare REIT’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Medical Properties Trust	-2.96%	-0.66%	-0.20%
American Healthcare REIT	4.84%	3.63%	2.25%

Institutional and Insider Ownership

71.8% of Medical Properties Trust shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 16.7% of American Healthcare REIT shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.8% of Medical Properties Trust shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 0.7% of American Healthcare REIT shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Dividends

Medical Properties Trust pays an annual dividend of $0.36 per share and has a dividend yield of 8.6%. American Healthcare REIT pays an annual dividend of $1.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.8%. Medical Properties Trust pays out -600.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. American Healthcare REIT pays out 147.1% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Medical Properties Trust is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Risk and Volatility

Medical Properties Trust has a beta of 1.41, indicating that its stock price is 41% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, American Healthcare REIT has a beta of 0.76, indicating that its stock price is 24% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

American Healthcare REIT beats Medical Properties Trust on 11 of the 16 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Medical Properties Trust

Medical Properties Trust, Inc. is a self-advised real estate investment trust formed to capitalize on the changing trends in healthcare delivery by acquiring and developing net-leased healthcare facilities. MPT’s financing model allows hospitals and other healthcare facilities to unlock the value of their underlying real estate in order to fund facility improvements, technology upgrades, staff additions and new construction. Facilities include acute care hospitals, inpatient rehabilitation hospitals, long-term acute care hospitals, and other medical and surgical facilities.

About American Healthcare REIT

Formed by the successful merger of Griffin-American Healthcare REIT III and Griffin-American Healthcare REIT IV, as well as the acquisition of the business and operations of American Healthcare Investors, American Healthcare REIT is one of the larger healthcare-focused real estate investment trusts globally with assets totaling approximately $4.2 billion in gross investment value. The company benefits from a fully integrated management platform comprised of more than one hundred experienced and skilled professionals, many of whom have worked together since 2006 and have successfully invested in and managed healthcare real estate through multiple market cycles. The management team has a proven track record, deep industry relationships and unparalleled insight into each of the company's assets having built and nurtured the company's international portfolio since its original property acquisition in 2014. The strength of the management team, coupled with the quality of the assets, has American Healthcare REIT poised to capitalize on compelling growth driven by powerful demographic trends. With its 19 million-square-foot, 312-building portfolio of medical office buildings, senior housing communities, skilled nursing facilities and integrated senior health campuses diversified across 36 states and the United Kingdom, the tri-party transaction was a critical step in ideally positioning American Healthcare REIT for a future public listing or IPO on a national stock exchange at the most opportune time. By listing the company's shares on a national exchange, we believe the company will gain greater access to attractive capital that will fuel future growth, broaden our investor base and also provide liquidity to our fellow stockholders. American Healthcare REIT, Inc. operates as a subsidiary of Griffin Capital Company, LLC.