Contrasting Gladstone Land (NASDAQ:LAND) & Great Portland Estates (OTCMKTS:GPEAF)

Gladstone Land (NASDAQ:LAND) and Great Portland Estates (OTCMKTS:GPEAF) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, earnings, institutional ownership, risk, valuation, profitability and analyst recommendations.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current recommendations and price targets for Gladstone Land and Great Portland Estates, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Gladstone Land	0	1	0	0	2.00
Great Portland Estates	0	3	1	0	2.25

Great Portland Estates has a consensus price target of $520.00, indicating a potential upside of 10,008.86%. Given Great Portland Estates’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Great Portland Estates is more favorable than Gladstone Land.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

53.6% of Gladstone Land shares are held by institutional investors. 7.1% of Gladstone Land shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares Gladstone Land and Great Portland Estates’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Gladstone Land	16.11%	1.99%	1.03%
Great Portland Estates	N/A	N/A	N/A

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Gladstone Land and Great Portland Estates’ gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Gladstone Land	$90.40 million	4.92	$14.56 million	($0.27)	-46.00
Great Portland Estates	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

Gladstone Land has higher revenue and earnings than Great Portland Estates.

Risk and Volatility

Gladstone Land has a beta of 1, meaning that its share price has a similar volatility profile to the S&P 500.Comparatively, Great Portland Estates has a beta of 0.09, meaning that its share price is 91% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Gladstone Land beats Great Portland Estates on 7 of the 10 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Gladstone Land

Founded in 1997, Gladstone Land is a publicly traded real estate investment trust that acquires and owns farmland and farm-related properties located in major agricultural markets in the U.S. and leases its properties to unrelated third-party farmers. The Company, which reports the aggregate fair value of its farmland holdings on a quarterly basis, currently owns 169 farms, comprised of approximately 116,000 acres in 15 different states and over 45,000 acre-feet of banked water in California, valued at a total of approximately $1.6 billion. Gladstone Land's farms are predominantly located in regions where its tenants are able to grow fresh produce annual row crops, such as berries and vegetables, which are generally planted and harvested annually. The Company also owns farms growing permanent crops, such as almonds, apples, cherries, figs, lemons, olives, pistachios, and other orchards, as well as blueberry groves and vineyards, which are generally planted every 20-plus years and harvested annually. Approximately 40% of the Company's fresh produce acreage is either organic or in transition to become organic, and over 10% of its permanent crop acreage falls into this category. The Company may also acquire property related to farming, such as cooling facilities, processing buildings, packaging facilities, and distribution centers. Gladstone Land pays monthly distributions to its stockholders and has paid 129 consecutive monthly cash distributions on its common stock since its initial public offering in January 2013. The Company has increased its common distributions 32 times over the prior 35 quarters, and the current per-share distribution on its common stock is $0.0464 per month, or $0.5568 per year.

About Great Portland Estates

We are a FTSE 250 property investment and development company owning £2.5 billion of real estate in central London. We proactively manage our portfolio, flexing our activities in tune with London's property cycle to deliver long-term out-performance. We create in-demand spaces that people want to be part of; helping our occupiers, local communities and the city to thrive.