Financial Analysis: Medical Properties Trust (MPT) vs. Its Peers

Medical Properties Trust (NYSE:MPT) is one of 27 public companies in the “Real Estate Investment Trusts” industry, but how does it weigh in compared to its competitors? We will compare Medical Properties Trust to similar businesses based on the strength of its dividends, risk, valuation, profitability, earnings, institutional ownership and analyst recommendations.

Risk & Volatility

Medical Properties Trust has a beta of 1.39, suggesting that its share price is 39% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Medical Properties Trust’s competitors have a beta of 1.19, suggesting that their average share price is 19% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Dividends

Medical Properties Trust pays an annual dividend of $0.36 per share and has a dividend yield of 7.9%. Medical Properties Trust pays out -78.3% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. As a group, “Real Estate Investment Trusts” companies pay a dividend yield of 5.5% and pay out 169.8% of their earnings in the form of a dividend. Medical Properties Trust is clearly a better dividend stock than its competitors, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings and target prices for Medical Properties Trust and its competitors, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Medical Properties Trust	1	0	0	0	1.00
Medical Properties Trust Competitors	89	717	222	1	2.13

As a group, “Real Estate Investment Trusts” companies have a potential upside of 24.44%. Given Medical Properties Trust’s competitors stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Medical Properties Trust has less favorable growth aspects than its competitors.

Profitability

This table compares Medical Properties Trust and its competitors’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Medical Properties Trust	-28.50%	-5.87%	-1.85%
Medical Properties Trust Competitors	-191.95%	-30.83%	-5.18%

Insider & Institutional Ownership

71.8% of Medical Properties Trust shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 45.9% of shares of all “Real Estate Investment Trusts” companies are owned by institutional investors. 1.3% of Medical Properties Trust shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 14.2% of shares of all “Real Estate Investment Trusts” companies are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Medical Properties Trust and its competitors revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Medical Properties Trust	$972.02 million	-$277.05 million	-9.89
Medical Properties Trust Competitors	$121.89 million	-$50.53 million	8.90

Medical Properties Trust has higher revenue, but lower earnings than its competitors. Medical Properties Trust is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than its competitors, indicating that it is currently more affordable than other companies in its industry.

Summary

Medical Properties Trust beats its competitors on 8 of the 15 factors compared.

About Medical Properties Trust

Medical Properties Trust, Inc. is a self-advised real estate investment trust formed to capitalize on the changing trends in healthcare delivery by acquiring and developing net-leased healthcare facilities. MPT’s financing model allows hospitals and other healthcare facilities to unlock the value of their underlying real estate in order to fund facility improvements, technology upgrades, staff additions and new construction. Facilities include acute care hospitals, inpatient rehabilitation hospitals, long-term acute care hospitals, and other medical and surgical facilities.