Comparing Safestore (OTCMKTS:SFSHF) and Brookfield (NYSE:BN)

Brookfield (NYSE:BN) and Safestore (OTCMKTS:SFSHF) are both finance companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, profitability, earnings, dividends, valuation, risk and institutional ownership.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for Brookfield and Safestore, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Brookfield	0	2	12	1	2.93
Safestore	2	1	1	0	1.75

Brookfield presently has a consensus target price of $56.64, suggesting a potential upside of 34.64%. Given Brookfield’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe Brookfield is more favorable than Safestore.

Profitability

This table compares Brookfield and Safestore’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Brookfield	1.76%	3.86%	1.20%
Safestore	N/A	N/A	N/A

Institutional and Insider Ownership

61.6% of Brookfield shares are held by institutional investors. 11.0% of Brookfield shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Brookfield and Safestore”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Brookfield	$75.10 billion	1.37	$1.31 billion	$0.51	82.48
Safestore	$306.59 million	5.61	$145.42 million	N/A	N/A

Brookfield has higher revenue and earnings than Safestore.

Risk & Volatility

Brookfield has a beta of 1.54, indicating that its share price is 54% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Safestore has a beta of 0.91, indicating that its share price is 9% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Brookfield beats Safestore on 12 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Brookfield

Brookfield Corporation is an alternative asset manager and REIT/Real Estate Investment Manager firm focuses on real estate, renewable power, infrastructure and venture capital and private equity assets. It manages a range of public and private investment products and services for institutional and retail clients. It typically makes investments in sizeable, premier assets across geographies and asset classes. It invests both its own capital as well as capital from other investors. Within private equity and venture capital, it focuses on acquisition, early ventures, control buyouts and financially distressed, buyouts and corporate carve-outs, recapitalizations, convertible, senior and mezzanine financings, operational and capital structure restructuring, strategic re-direction, turnaround, and under-performing midmarket companies. It invests in both public debt and equity markets. It invests in private equity sectors with focus on Business Services include infrastructure, healthcare, road fuel distribution and marketing, construction and real estate; Industrials include manufacturers of automotive batteries, graphite electrodes, returnable plastic packaging, and sanitation management and development; and Residential/ infrastructure services. It targets companies which likely possess underlying real assets, primarily in sectors such as industrial products, building materials, metals, mining, homebuilding, oil and gas, paper and packaging, manufacturing and forest product sectors. It invests globally with focus on North America including Brazil, the United States, Canada; Europe; and Australia; and Asia-Pacific. The firm considers equity investments in the range of $2 million to $500 million. It has a four-year investment period and a 10-year term with two one-year extensions. The firm prefers to take minority stake and majority stake. Brookfield Corporation was founded in 1997 and based in Toronto, Canada with additional offices across Northern America; South America; Europe; Middle East and Asia.

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.