Head-To-Head Contrast: Morningstar (NASDAQ:MORN) vs. Iron Mountain (NYSE:IRM)

Iron Mountain (NYSE:IRM) and Morningstar (NASDAQ:MORN) are both large-cap business services companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, dividends, institutional ownership, risk, earnings, valuation and analyst recommendations.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

80.1% of Iron Mountain shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 57.0% of Morningstar shares are held by institutional investors. 1.9% of Iron Mountain shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 36.2% of Morningstar shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Volatility and Risk

Iron Mountain has a beta of 1.09, meaning that its stock price is 9% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Morningstar has a beta of 1.02, meaning that its stock price is 2% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent recommendations for Iron Mountain and Morningstar, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Iron Mountain	0	0	7	1	3.13
Morningstar	0	1	2	0	2.67

Iron Mountain presently has a consensus price target of $121.71, indicating a potential upside of 20.45%. Morningstar has a consensus price target of $361.67, indicating a potential upside of 16.46%. Given Iron Mountain’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Iron Mountain is more favorable than Morningstar.

Profitability

This table compares Iron Mountain and Morningstar’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Iron Mountain	1.97%	-201.62%	2.82%
Morningstar	16.60%	23.23%	10.26%

Dividends

Iron Mountain pays an annual dividend of $3.14 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.1%. Morningstar pays an annual dividend of $1.82 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.6%. Iron Mountain pays out 765.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Morningstar pays out 20.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Iron Mountain has increased its dividend for 3 consecutive years and Morningstar has increased its dividend for 16 consecutive years.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Iron Mountain and Morningstar”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Iron Mountain	$6.15 billion	4.85	$180.16 million	$0.41	246.46
Morningstar	$2.28 billion	5.77	$369.90 million	$8.90	34.89

Morningstar has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Iron Mountain. Morningstar is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Iron Mountain, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

About Iron Mountain

Iron Mountain Incorporated (NYSE: IRM) is a global leader in information management services. Founded in 1951 and trusted by more than 240,000 customers worldwide, Iron Mountain serves to protect and elevate the power of our customers’ work. Through a range of offerings including digital transformation, data centers, secure records storage, information management, asset lifecycle management, secure destruction and art storage and logistics, Iron Mountain helps businesses bring light to their dark data, enabling customers to unlock value and intelligence from their stored digital and physical assets at speed and with security, while helping them meet their environmental goals.

About Morningstar

Morningstar, Inc. provides independent investment insights in the United States, Asia. Australia, Continental Europe, the United Kingdom, and internationally. The company operates in five segments: Morningstar Data and Analytics; PitchBook; Morningstar Wealth; Morningstar Credit; and Morningstar Retirement. The company offers managing investments, including mutual funds, ETFs, separate accounts, collective investment trusts, model portfolios, equities, and fixed income securities; Morningstar Direct is an investment-analysis and reporting platform; Morningstar Advisor Workstation, a suite of tool to provide help and advice. The PitchBook segment provides data and research covering the private capital markets comprising venture capital, private equity, private credit and bank loans, and merger and acquisition activities; and pitchbook platform. It provides model portfolios and wealth platforms; Morningstar Managed Portfolios, an advisor service with model portfolios designed for fee-based independent financial advisors; and Morningstar.com that discovers, evaluates, and monitors stocks, ETFs, and mutual funds; build and monitor portfolios and markets. In addition, the company provides credit ratings, research, data, and credit analytics solutions; Morningstar DBRS which offers securitizations and other structured finance instruments, such as asset-backed securities, residential mortgage-backed securities, commercial mortgage-backed securities, and collateralized loan obligations. Further, it offers managed retirement accounts, fiduciary services, Morningstar Lifetime Allocation funds, and custom models; Morningstar Indexes offers market indexes used for performance benchmarks and as the basis for investment products and other portfolio strategies; and Morningstar Sustainalytics provides environmental, social and governance data, research, analysis, and insights. Morningstar, Inc. was incorporated in 1984 and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.