Critical Survey: Kennedy-Wilson (NYSE:KW) & Safestore (OTCMKTS:SFSHF)

Kennedy-Wilson (NYSE:KW) and Safestore (OTCMKTS:SFSHF) are both finance companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, valuation, profitability, analyst recommendations, dividends, institutional ownership and risk.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current recommendations and price targets for Kennedy-Wilson and Safestore, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Kennedy-Wilson	1	1	0	0	1.50
Safestore	1	1	1	0	2.00

Kennedy-Wilson presently has a consensus price target of $11.00, suggesting a potential downside of 0.14%. Given Kennedy-Wilson’s higher probable upside, equities analysts plainly believe Kennedy-Wilson is more favorable than Safestore.

Volatility and Risk

Kennedy-Wilson has a beta of 0.88, suggesting that its stock price is 12% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Safestore has a beta of 0.92, suggesting that its stock price is 8% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Kennedy-Wilson and Safestore”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Kennedy-Wilson	$501.00 million	3.06	$4.70 million	$0.11	100.14
Safestore	$306.59 million	6.72	$145.42 million	N/A	N/A

Safestore has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Kennedy-Wilson.

Profitability

This table compares Kennedy-Wilson and Safestore’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Kennedy-Wilson	12.08%	23.82%	2.76%
Safestore	N/A	N/A	N/A

Institutional and Insider Ownership

87.7% of Kennedy-Wilson shares are owned by institutional investors. 20.3% of Kennedy-Wilson shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Summary

Kennedy-Wilson beats Safestore on 7 of the 12 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Kennedy-Wilson

Kennedy-Wilson Holdings, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates as a real estate investment company. The company owns, operates, and invests in real estate both on its own and through its investment management platform. It focuses on multifamily and office properties located in the Western United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Spain, Italy, and Japan. The company had ownership interests in multifamily units, office space, retail and industrial space, and a hotel. It is involved in the development, redevelopment, and entitlement of real estate properties. Kennedy-Wilson Holdings, Inc. was founded in 1977 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California.

About Safestore

Safestore is the UK’s largest self storage group with 190 stores on 31 October 2023, comprising 133 wholly owned stores in the UK (including 73 in London and the South East with the remainder in key metropolitan areas such as Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Sheffield, Leeds, Newcastle, and Bristol), 29 wholly owned stores in the Paris region, 11 stores in Spain, 11 stores in the Netherlands and 6 stores in Belgium. In addition, the Group operates 7 stores in Germany under a Joint Venture agreement with Carlyle. Safestore operates more self storage sites inside the M25 and in central Paris than any competitor providing more proximity to customers in the wealthiest and more densely populated UK and French markets. Safestore was founded in the UK in 1998. It acquired the French business “Une Pièce en Plus” (“UPP”) in 2004 which was founded in 1998 by the current Safestore Group CEO Frederic Vecchioli. Safestore has been listed on the London Stock Exchange since 2007. It entered the FTSE 250 index in October 2015. The Group provides storage to around 90,000 personal and business customers. As of 31 October 2023, Safestore had a maximum lettable area (“MLA”) of 8.090 million sq ft (excluding the expansion pipeline stores) of which 6.231 million sq ft was occupied. Safestore employs around 750 people in the UK, Paris, Spain, the Netherlands, and Belgium.