Analyzing Lamar Advertising (NASDAQ:LAMR) & Global Medical REIT (NYSE:GMRE)

Global Medical REIT (NYSE:GMRE) and Lamar Advertising (NASDAQ:LAMR) are both finance companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, institutional ownership, profitability, earnings, analyst recommendations, valuation and risk.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings and recommmendations for Global Medical REIT and Lamar Advertising, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Global Medical REIT	0	0	1	0	3.00
Lamar Advertising	0	3	1	0	2.25

Global Medical REIT presently has a consensus price target of $10.00, suggesting a potential downside of 0.74%. Lamar Advertising has a consensus price target of $123.25, suggesting a potential downside of 6.01%. Given Global Medical REIT’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities analysts clearly believe Global Medical REIT is more favorable than Lamar Advertising.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Global Medical REIT and Lamar Advertising”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Global Medical REIT	$141.05 million	4.69	$20.61 million	$0.23	43.80
Lamar Advertising	$2.16 billion	6.20	$495.76 million	$4.87	26.93

Lamar Advertising has higher revenue and earnings than Global Medical REIT. Lamar Advertising is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Global Medical REIT, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Global Medical REIT and Lamar Advertising’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Global Medical REIT	4.18%	1.09%	0.45%
Lamar Advertising	23.34%	42.18%	7.69%

Institutional and Insider Ownership

57.5% of Global Medical REIT shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 93.8% of Lamar Advertising shares are held by institutional investors. 8.2% of Global Medical REIT shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 15.0% of Lamar Advertising shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Dividends

Global Medical REIT pays an annual dividend of $0.84 per share and has a dividend yield of 8.3%. Lamar Advertising pays an annual dividend of $5.60 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.3%. Global Medical REIT pays out 365.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Lamar Advertising pays out 115.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future.

Risk and Volatility

Global Medical REIT has a beta of 1.24, suggesting that its stock price is 24% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Lamar Advertising has a beta of 1.52, suggesting that its stock price is 52% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Lamar Advertising beats Global Medical REIT on 11 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Global Medical REIT

Global Medical REIT Inc. (GMRE) is a net-lease medical office real estate investment trust (REIT) that owns and acquires healthcare facilities and leases those facilities to physician groups and regional and national healthcare systems.

About Lamar Advertising

Lamar Advertising Company operates as an outdoor advertising company in the United States and Canada. The company owns and operates billboards, logo signs, and transit advertising displays, as well as rents space for advertising on billboards, buses, shelters, benches, logo plates, and in airport terminals. Lamar Advertising Company was founded in 1902 and is headquartered in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.