Crown Castle (NYSE:CCI) & Smartstop Self Storage REIT (NYSE:SMA) Critical Analysis

Crown Castle (NYSE:CCI) and Smartstop Self Storage REIT (NYSE:SMA) are both real estate companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, earnings, valuation, institutional ownership, risk, profitability and analyst recommendations.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

90.8% of Crown Castle shares are held by institutional investors. 0.1% of Crown Castle shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 5.7% of Smartstop Self Storage REIT shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares Crown Castle and Smartstop Self Storage REIT’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Crown Castle	20.71%	-51.60%	3.70%
Smartstop Self Storage REIT	9.68%	2.33%	1.23%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings and recommmendations for Crown Castle and Smartstop Self Storage REIT, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Crown Castle	1	10	8	2	2.52
Smartstop Self Storage REIT	1	4	4	2	2.64

Crown Castle presently has a consensus price target of $94.07, suggesting a potential upside of 42.19%. Smartstop Self Storage REIT has a consensus price target of $36.53, suggesting a potential upside of 13.18%. Given Crown Castle’s higher possible upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Crown Castle is more favorable than Smartstop Self Storage REIT.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Crown Castle and Smartstop Self Storage REIT”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Crown Castle	$4.26 billion	6.60	$444.00 million	$1.97	33.58
Smartstop Self Storage REIT	$281.14 million	6.36	-$1.55 million	$0.51	63.28

Crown Castle has higher revenue and earnings than Smartstop Self Storage REIT. Crown Castle is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Smartstop Self Storage REIT, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Dividends

Crown Castle pays an annual dividend of $4.25 per share and has a dividend yield of 6.4%. Smartstop Self Storage REIT pays an annual dividend of $1.58 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.9%. Crown Castle pays out 215.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Smartstop Self Storage REIT pays out 309.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Crown Castle is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Risk and Volatility

Crown Castle has a beta of 0.94, indicating that its share price is 6% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Smartstop Self Storage REIT has a beta of 0.48, indicating that its share price is 52% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Crown Castle beats Smartstop Self Storage REIT on 12 of the 16 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Crown Castle

Crown Castle owns, operates and leases more than 40,000 cell towers and approximately 90,000 route miles of fiber supporting small cells and fiber solutions across every major U.S. market. This nationwide portfolio of communications infrastructure connects cities and communities to essential data, technology and wireless service – bringing information, ideas and innovations to the people and businesses that need them.

About Smartstop Self Storage REIT

Symmetry Medical Inc. (Symmetry) is a medical device solutions company, including surgical instruments, orthopedic implants, and sterilization cases and trays. The Company designs, develops and offers worldwide production and supply chain capabilities for these products to customers in the orthopedic industry, and other medical device markets (including but not limited to arthroscopy, dental, laparoscopy, osteobiologic, and endoscopy segments). It also manufactures specialized non-healthcare products, primarily in the aerospace industry. The Company operates in two segments: original equipment manufacturer (OEM) solutions and symmetry surgical. On August 15, 2011, the Company acquired PSC Industries, Inc’s Olsen Medical division. On December 29, 2011 it acquired the surgical instruments product portfolio from Codman & Shurtleff, Inc., a Johnson & Johnson Company.