Chatham Lodging Trust (NYSE:CLDT) & SBA Communications (NASDAQ:SBAC) Head to Head Survey

Chatham Lodging Trust (NYSE:CLDT) and SBA Communications (NASDAQ:SBAC) are both finance companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, profitability, risk, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, dividends and earnings.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and recommmendations for Chatham Lodging Trust and SBA Communications, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Chatham Lodging Trust	0	3	2	0	2.40
SBA Communications	0	9	8	1	2.56

Chatham Lodging Trust presently has a consensus target price of $12.50, indicating a potential downside of 5.42%. SBA Communications has a consensus target price of $236.39, indicating a potential upside of 33.96%. Given SBA Communications’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe SBA Communications is more favorable than Chatham Lodging Trust.

Risk and Volatility

Chatham Lodging Trust has a beta of 1.12, indicating that its share price is 12% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, SBA Communications has a beta of 0.99, indicating that its share price is 1% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Dividends

Chatham Lodging Trust pays an annual dividend of $0.40 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.0%. SBA Communications pays an annual dividend of $5.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.8%. Chatham Lodging Trust pays out 2,000.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. SBA Communications pays out 52.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Chatham Lodging Trust has increased its dividend for 2 consecutive years and SBA Communications has increased its dividend for 6 consecutive years.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

88.4% of Chatham Lodging Trust shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 97.4% of SBA Communications shares are owned by institutional investors. 8.1% of Chatham Lodging Trust shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 9.5% of SBA Communications shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Chatham Lodging Trust and SBA Communications”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Chatham Lodging Trust	$295.08 million	2.09	$15.05 million	$0.02	660.85
SBA Communications	$2.82 billion	6.65	$1.05 billion	$9.50	18.57

SBA Communications has higher revenue and earnings than Chatham Lodging Trust. SBA Communications is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Chatham Lodging Trust, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Chatham Lodging Trust and SBA Communications’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Chatham Lodging Trust	3.14%	1.18%	0.77%
SBA Communications	35.66%	-20.90%	8.98%

Summary

SBA Communications beats Chatham Lodging Trust on 14 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Chatham Lodging Trust

Chatham Lodging Trust is a self-advised, publicly traded real estate investment trust (REIT) focused primarily on investing in upscale, extended-stay hotels and premium-branded, select-service hotels. The company owns 39 hotels totaling 5,915 rooms/suites in 16 states and the District of Columbia.

About SBA Communications

SBA Communications Corporation is a leading independent owner and operator of wireless communications infrastructure including towers, buildings, rooftops, distributed antenna systems (DAS) and small cells. With a portfolio of more than 39,000 communications sites throughout the Americas, Africa and in Asia, SBA is listed on NASDAQ under the symbol SBAC. Our organization is part of the S&P 500 and is one of the top Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) by market capitalization.