Contrasting Crown Castle (NYSE:CCI) & Alexander’s (NYSE:ALX)

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

Institutional and Insider Ownership

90.8% of Crown Castle shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 32.0% of Alexander’s shares are held by institutional investors. 0.1% of Crown Castle shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 26.3% of Alexander’s shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Dividends

Crown Castle pays an annual dividend of $4.25 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.9%. Alexander’s pays an annual dividend of $18.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 7.4%. Crown Castle pays out 420.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Alexander’s pays out 327.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Alexander’s has increased its dividend for 1 consecutive years. Alexander’s is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings and target prices for Crown Castle and Alexander’s, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Crown Castle	1	9	9	1	2.50
Alexander’s	0	1	0	1	3.00

Crown Castle presently has a consensus price target of $100.02, indicating a potential upside of 15.90%. Given Crown Castle’s higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Crown Castle is more favorable than Alexander’s.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Crown Castle and Alexander’s”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Crown Castle	$4.26 billion	8.83	$444.00 million	$1.01	85.45
Alexander’s	$213.18 million	5.81	$28.22 million	$5.49	44.14

Crown Castle has higher revenue and earnings than Alexander’s. Alexander’s 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 and Risk

Crown Castle has a beta of 0.96, indicating that its stock price is 4% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Alexander’s has a beta of 0.82, indicating that its stock price is 18% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

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

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Crown Castle	10.41%	-76.56%	3.49%
Alexander’s	13.24%	20.68%	2.23%

Summary

Crown Castle beats Alexander’s on 9 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 Alexander’s

Alexander’s, Inc. (NYSE: ALX) is a real estate investment trust (REIT), incorporated in Delaware, engaged in leasing, managing, developing and redeveloping its properties. All references to we, us, our, Company and Alexander’s refer to Alexander’s, Inc. and its consolidated subsidiaries. We are managed by, and our properties are leased and developed by, Vornado Realty Trust (Vornado) (NYSE: VNO). We have five properties in New York City.