Head to Head Contrast: Safestore (OTCMKTS:SFSHF) vs. Cushman & Wakefield (NYSE:CWK)

Safestore (OTCMKTS:SFSHF) and Cushman & Wakefield (NYSE:CWK) are both mid-cap finance companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, valuation, earnings, profitability, institutional ownership, risk and dividends.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent recommendations and price targets for Safestore and Cushman & Wakefield, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Safestore	1	1	1	0	2.00
Cushman & Wakefield	0	5	5	0	2.50

Cushman & Wakefield has a consensus target price of $18.00, suggesting a potential upside of 41.81%. Given Cushman & Wakefield’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Cushman & Wakefield is more favorable than Safestore.

Profitability

This table compares Safestore and Cushman & Wakefield’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Safestore	N/A	N/A	N/A
Cushman & Wakefield	0.70%	15.41%	3.92%

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Safestore and Cushman & Wakefield”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Safestore	$306.59 million	5.92	$145.42 million	N/A	N/A
Cushman & Wakefield	$10.29 billion	0.29	$88.20 million	$0.32	39.67

Safestore has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Cushman & Wakefield.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

95.6% of Cushman & Wakefield shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.7% of Cushman & Wakefield shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Volatility & Risk

Safestore has a beta of 0.9, indicating that its share price is 10% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Cushman & Wakefield has a beta of 1.44, indicating that its share price is 44% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Cushman & Wakefield beats Safestore on 10 of the 12 factors compared between the two stocks.

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.

About Cushman & Wakefield

Cushman & Wakefield Plc engages in the provision of commercial real estate services. It operates through the following geographical segments: Americas, Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), and Asia Pacific (APAC). The Americas segment consists of operations located in the United States, Canada and key markets in Latin America. The EMEA segment includes operations in the UK, France, Netherlands and other markets in Europe and the Middle East. The APAC segment comprises of operations in Australia, Singapore, China and other markets in the Asia Pacific region. The company was founded in 1917 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom.