Contrasting Medical Properties Trust (MPT) and The Competition

Medical Properties Trust (NYSE:MPT) is one of 55 publicly-traded 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 related businesses based on the strength of its institutional ownership, valuation, earnings, risk, profitability, dividends and analyst recommendations.

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	-52.04%	-21.15%	-0.32%

Dividends

Medical Properties Trust pays an annual dividend of $0.36 per share and has a dividend yield of 7.6%. 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 3.4% and pay out 119.0% 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.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Medical Properties Trust and its competitors top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Medical Properties Trust	$972.02 million	-$277.05 million	-10.26
Medical Properties Trust Competitors	$462.83 million	$79.32 million	28.05

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.

Volatility and Risk

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

Institutional and Insider Ownership

71.8% of Medical Properties Trust shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 62.0% 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, 7.5% of shares of all “Real Estate Investment Trusts” companies are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Recommendations

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

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Medical Properties Trust	1	0	0	0	1.00
Medical Properties Trust Competitors	1500	2828	1507	13	2.01

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 clearly believe Medical Properties Trust has less favorable growth aspects than its competitors.

Summary

Medical Properties Trust competitors beat Medical Properties Trust 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.