Comparing Corporación Inmobiliaria Vesta (OTCMKTS:VESTF) & St. Joe (NYSE:JOE)

St. Joe (NYSE:JOE) and Corporación Inmobiliaria Vesta (OTCMKTS:VESTF) are both real estate companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, dividends, earnings, risk, institutional ownership, profitability and analyst recommendations.

Dividends

St. Joe pays an annual dividend of $0.64 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.9%. Corporación Inmobiliaria Vesta pays an annual dividend of $0.03 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.8%. St. Joe pays out 29.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Corporación Inmobiliaria Vesta pays out 20.2% 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. St. Joe has raised its dividend for 3 consecutive years. St. Joe is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings and target prices for St. Joe and Corporación Inmobiliaria Vesta, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
St. Joe	0	0	1	0	3.00
Corporación Inmobiliaria Vesta	0	0	0	0	0.00

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares St. Joe and Corporación Inmobiliaria Vesta”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
St. Joe	$513.20 million	7.49	$115.63 million	$2.14	31.56
Corporación Inmobiliaria Vesta	N/A	N/A	N/A	$0.15	26.33

St. Joe has higher revenue and earnings than Corporación Inmobiliaria Vesta. Corporación Inmobiliaria Vesta is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than St. Joe, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares St. Joe and Corporación Inmobiliaria Vesta’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
St. Joe	22.45%	15.90%	8.09%
Corporación Inmobiliaria Vesta	N/A	N/A	N/A

Insider and Institutional Ownership

86.7% of St. Joe shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 21.0% of Corporación Inmobiliaria Vesta shares are held by institutional investors. 0.3% of St. Joe shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Summary

St. Joe beats Corporación Inmobiliaria Vesta on 12 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About St. Joe

The St. Joe Company, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a real estate development, asset management, and operating company in Northwest Florida. It operates through three segments: Residential, Hospitality, and Commercial. The Residential segment engages in the development of communities into homesites for sale to homebuilders and on a limited basis to retail customers. This segment primarily sells developed homesites, completed homes, parcels of entitled or undeveloped land or homesites, and a homesite residual on homebuilder, as well as offers title insurance and marketing services. The Hospitality segment owns and operates a private membership club, golf courses, beach clubs, retail outlets, marinas, and other entertainment assets. This segment also engages in the hotel, food and beverage, and gulf-front vacation rental operations, as well as provides management services. The Commercial segment engages in leasing of commercial property, multi-family, a senior living community, and other assets. This segment is also involved in the planning, development, entitlement, management, and sale of commercial and rural land holdings for retail, office, hotel, senior living, multi-family, self-storage, and industrial uses; and grows and sells pulpwood, sawtimber, and other forest products. The company was incorporated in 1936 and is based in Panama City Beach, Florida.

About Corporación Inmobiliaria Vesta

Corporación Inmobiliaria Vesta, S.A.B. de C.V., together with its subsidiaries, acquires, develops, manages, operates, and leases industrial buildings and distribution facilities in Mexico. The company was incorporated in 1998 and is headquartered in Mexico City, Mexico.