Head-To-Head Review: Saul Centers (NYSE:BFS) vs. Global Medical REIT (NYSE:GMRE)

Saul Centers (NYSE:BFS) and Global Medical REIT (NYSE:GMRE) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, profitability, analyst recommendations, dividends, earnings, risk and valuation.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for Saul Centers and Global Medical REIT, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Saul Centers	0	0	1	0	3.00
Global Medical REIT	0	0	2	0	3.00

Saul Centers presently has a consensus price target of $45.50, indicating a potential upside of 12.85%. Global Medical REIT has a consensus price target of $11.00, indicating a potential upside of 16.03%. Given Global Medical REIT’s higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Global Medical REIT is more favorable than Saul Centers.

Dividends

Saul Centers pays an annual dividend of $2.36 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.9%. Global Medical REIT pays an annual dividend of $0.84 per share and has a dividend yield of 8.9%. Saul Centers pays out 136.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Global Medical REIT pays out 365.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future.

Risk & Volatility

Saul Centers has a beta of 1.1, meaning that its share price is 10% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Global Medical REIT has a beta of 1.25, meaning that its share price is 25% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Saul Centers and Global Medical REIT”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Saul Centers	$264.08 million	3.66	$52.69 million	$1.73	23.31
Global Medical REIT	$137.70 million	4.52	$20.61 million	$0.23	41.22

Saul Centers has higher revenue and earnings than Global Medical REIT. Saul Centers is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Global Medical REIT, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Saul Centers and Global Medical REIT’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Saul Centers	20.49%	16.61%	2.69%
Global Medical REIT	4.18%	1.09%	0.45%

Insider & Institutional Ownership

50.0% of Saul Centers shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 57.5% of Global Medical REIT shares are owned by institutional investors. 56.6% of Saul Centers shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 8.2% of Global Medical REIT shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Saul Centers beats Global Medical REIT on 8 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Saul Centers

Saul Centers is a self-managed, self-administered equity REIT headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland. Saul Centers currently operates and manages a real estate portfolio comprised of 61 properties that includes (a) 57 community and neighborhood Shopping Centers and Mixed-Use properties with approximately 9.8 million square feet of leasable area and (b) four land and development properties. Over 85% of the Company’s property operating income is generated from properties in the metropolitan Washington, DC/Baltimore area.

About Global Medical REIT

Global Medical REIT Inc. (GMRE) is a net-lease medical office real estate investment trust (REIT) that owns and acquires healthcare facilities and leases those facilities to physician groups and regional and national healthcare systems.