Iron Mountain (NYSE:IRM) & National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA) Head to Head Analysis

Iron Mountain (NYSE:IRM) and National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA) are both real estate companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, valuation, dividends, risk, profitability, analyst recommendations and institutional ownership.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

80.1% of Iron Mountain shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 100.0% of National Storage Affiliates Trust shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.7% of Iron Mountain shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 13.7% of National Storage Affiliates Trust shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent recommendations and price targets for Iron Mountain and National Storage Affiliates Trust, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Iron Mountain	0	1	5	0	2.83
National Storage Affiliates Trust	2	11	0	0	1.85

Iron Mountain currently has a consensus price target of $135.17, indicating a potential upside of 10.83%. National Storage Affiliates Trust has a consensus price target of $39.06, indicating a potential downside of 10.02%. Given Iron Mountain’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities analysts clearly believe Iron Mountain is more favorable than National Storage Affiliates Trust.

Risk & Volatility

Iron Mountain has a beta of 1.2, meaning that its stock price is 20% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, National Storage Affiliates Trust has a beta of 1.03, meaning that its stock price is 3% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Iron Mountain and National Storage Affiliates Trust’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Iron Mountain	5.54%	-85.44%	3.30%
National Storage Affiliates Trust	10.48%	6.46%	1.54%

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Iron Mountain and National Storage Affiliates Trust”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Iron Mountain	$6.90 billion	5.26	$144.59 million	$1.40	87.12
National Storage Affiliates Trust	$752.93 million	4.45	$73.78 million	$0.75	57.88

Iron Mountain has higher revenue and earnings than National Storage Affiliates Trust. National Storage Affiliates Trust is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Iron Mountain, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Dividends

Iron Mountain pays an annual dividend of $3.46 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.8%. National Storage Affiliates Trust pays an annual dividend of $2.28 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.3%. Iron Mountain pays out 247.1% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. National Storage Affiliates Trust pays out 304.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Iron Mountain has increased its dividend for 3 consecutive years and National Storage Affiliates Trust has increased its dividend for 1 consecutive years.

Summary

Iron Mountain beats National Storage Affiliates Trust on 12 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Iron Mountain

Iron Mountain Incorporated (NYSE: IRM) is a global leader in information management services. Founded in 1951 and trusted by more than 240,000 customers worldwide, Iron Mountain serves to protect and elevate the power of our customers’ work. Through a range of offerings including digital transformation, data centers, secure records storage, information management, asset lifecycle management, secure destruction and art storage and logistics, Iron Mountain helps businesses bring light to their dark data, enabling customers to unlock value and intelligence from their stored digital and physical assets at speed and with security, while helping them meet their environmental goals.

About National Storage Affiliates Trust

National Storage Affiliates Trust is a real estate investment trust headquartered in Greenwood Village, Colorado, focused on the ownership, operation and acquisition of self storage properties predominantly located within the top 100 metropolitan statistical areas throughout the United States. As of December 31, 2023, the Company held ownership interests in and operated 1,050 self storage properties, located in 42 states and Puerto Rico with approximately 68.6 million rentable square feet, which excludes 39 self storage properties classified as held for sale to be sold to a third party. NSA is one of the largest owners and operators of self storage properties among public and private companies in the United States.