Critical Contrast: Crown Castle (NYSE:CCI) & OUTFRONT Media (NYSE:OUT)

Crown Castle (NYSE:CCI) and OUTFRONT Media (NYSE:OUT) are both real estate companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, valuation, profitability, risk, dividends and earnings.

Risk and Volatility

Crown Castle has a beta of 0.94, suggesting that its share price is 6% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, OUTFRONT Media has a beta of 1.53, suggesting that its share price is 53% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Crown Castle and OUTFRONT Media”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	8.69	$444.00 million	$1.90	45.84
OUTFRONT Media	$1.83 billion	3.09	$147.00 million	$1.39	23.13

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

Profitability

This table compares Crown Castle and OUTFRONT Media’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Crown Castle	20.12%	-42.11%	4.11%
OUTFRONT Media	12.66%	37.44%	4.65%

Dividends

Crown Castle pays an annual dividend of $4.25 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.9%. OUTFRONT Media pays an annual dividend of $1.32 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.1%. Crown Castle pays out 223.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. OUTFRONT Media pays out 95.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

90.8% of Crown Castle shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.1% of Crown Castle shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 0.5% of OUTFRONT Media shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and recommmendations for Crown Castle and OUTFRONT Media, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Crown Castle	1	10	8	2	2.52
OUTFRONT Media	0	1	6	0	2.86

Crown Castle presently has a consensus target price of $94.27, suggesting a potential upside of 8.24%. OUTFRONT Media has a consensus target price of $34.00, suggesting a potential upside of 5.75%. Given Crown Castle’s higher possible upside, research analysts clearly believe Crown Castle is more favorable than OUTFRONT Media.

Summary

Crown Castle beats OUTFRONT Media on 11 of the 17 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 OUTFRONT Media

OUTFRONT Media, Inc. leases advertising space on out-of-home advertising structures and sites. Its inventory consists of billboard displays, which are primarily located on the most heavily traveled highways & roadways, and transit advertising displays operated under exclusive multi-year contracts with municipalities in large cities across the U.S. and Canada. It operates through the U.S. Media and other segments. The U.S. Media segment includes U.S. Billboard and Transit. The company was founded in 1938 and is headquartered in New York, NY.