Highwoods Properties (NYSE:HIW) & Nippon Building Fund (OTCMKTS:NBFJF) Head-To-Head Review

Nippon Building Fund (OTCMKTS:NBFJF) and Highwoods Properties (NYSE:HIW) are both real estate companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, valuation, dividends, risk, profitability, analyst recommendations and institutional ownership.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

42.3% of Nippon Building Fund shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 96.3% of Highwoods Properties shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.3% of Highwoods Properties shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for Nippon Building Fund and Highwoods Properties, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Nippon Building Fund	0	0	0	0	0.00
Highwoods Properties	0	7	1	0	2.12

Highwoods Properties has a consensus price target of $31.67, indicating a potential upside of 3.45%. Given Highwoods Properties’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Highwoods Properties is more favorable than Nippon Building Fund.

Profitability

This table compares Nippon Building Fund and Highwoods Properties’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Nippon Building Fund	N/A	N/A	N/A
Highwoods Properties	20.74%	7.06%	2.72%

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Nippon Building Fund and Highwoods Properties”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Nippon Building Fund	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Highwoods Properties	$806.11 million	4.19	$159.61 million	$1.52	20.14

Highwoods Properties has higher revenue and earnings than Nippon Building Fund.

Summary

Highwoods Properties beats Nippon Building Fund on 9 of the 9 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Nippon Building Fund

NBF (Nippon Building Fund Inc.) is Japan's largest real estate investment trust (J-REIT) which invests in office buildings primarily in Tokyo as well as nationwide. its objective is to source the solid growth of the stable revenues from its assets through exploitation of Mitsui Fudossan's know-how.

About Highwoods Properties

Highwoods Properties, Inc., headquartered in Raleigh, is a publicly-traded (NYSE:HIW), fully-integrated office real estate investment trust (REIT) that owns, develops, acquires, leases and manages properties primarily in the best business districts (BBDs) of Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, Nashville, Orlando, Raleigh, Richmond and Tampa. Highwoods is in the work-placemaking business. We believe that by creating environments and experiences where the best and brightest can achieve together what they cannot apart, we can deliver greater value to our customers, their teammates and, in turn, our stakeholders.