Critical Comparison: Medalist Diversified REIT (NASDAQ:MDRR) vs. Crown Castle (NYSE:CCI)

Crown Castle (NYSE:CCI) and Medalist Diversified REIT (NASDAQ:MDRR) are both finance companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, valuation, analyst recommendations, risk, earnings, dividends and institutional ownership.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

90.8% of Crown Castle shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 17.4% of Medalist Diversified REIT shares are held by institutional investors. 0.4% of Crown Castle shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 56.1% of Medalist Diversified REIT shares are held by company 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.

Dividends

Crown Castle pays an annual dividend of $6.26 per share and has a dividend yield of 6.8%. Medalist Diversified REIT pays an annual dividend of $0.26 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.1%. Crown Castle pays out 222.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Medalist Diversified REIT pays out -118.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and recommmendations for Crown Castle and Medalist Diversified REIT, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Crown Castle	1	10	5	1	2.35
Medalist Diversified REIT	0	0	0	0	0.00

Crown Castle currently has a consensus target price of $108.75, suggesting a potential upside of 17.94%. Given Crown Castle’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Crown Castle is more favorable than Medalist Diversified REIT.

Profitability

This table compares Crown Castle and Medalist Diversified REIT’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Crown Castle	18.59%	20.98%	3.20%
Medalist Diversified REIT	-2.18%	-18.35%	-3.87%

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Crown Castle and Medalist Diversified REIT”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Crown Castle	$6.98 billion	5.74	$1.50 billion	$2.82	32.70
Medalist Diversified REIT	$9.92 million	1.42	-$4.57 million	($0.22)	-57.52

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

Volatility & Risk

Crown Castle has a beta of 0.88, indicating that its share price is 12% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Medalist Diversified REIT has a beta of 0.72, indicating that its share price is 28% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Crown Castle beats Medalist Diversified REIT on 15 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 Medalist Diversified REIT

Medalist Diversified REIT Inc. is a Virginia-based real estate investment trust that specializes in acquiring, owning and managing commercial real estate in the Southeast region of the U.S. The Company's strategy is to focus on commercial real estate which is expected to provide an attractive balance of risk and returns. Medalist utilizes a rigorous, consistent and replicable process for sourcing and conducting due diligence of acquisitions.