Critical Survey: Crown Castle (NYSE:CCI) versus Four Corners Property Trust (NYSE:FCPT)

Four Corners Property Trust (NYSE:FCPT) and Crown Castle (NYSE:CCI) are both real estate companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, dividends, valuation, analyst recommendations, earnings, profitability and institutional ownership.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

98.7% of Four Corners Property Trust shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 90.8% of Crown Castle shares are held by institutional investors. 1.2% of Four Corners Property Trust shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.1% of Crown Castle shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings for Four Corners Property Trust and Crown Castle, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Four Corners Property Trust	0	6	4	1	2.55
Crown Castle	1	10	8	2	2.52

Four Corners Property Trust currently has a consensus target price of $26.45, suggesting a potential upside of 12.23%. Crown Castle has a consensus target price of $94.27, suggesting a potential upside of 6.74%. Given Four Corners Property Trust’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe Four Corners Property Trust is more favorable than Crown Castle.

Risk and Volatility

Four Corners Property Trust has a beta of 0.77, indicating that its stock price is 23% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Crown Castle has a beta of 0.88, indicating that its stock price is 12% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Four Corners Property Trust and Crown Castle”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Four Corners Property Trust	$294.13 million	8.80	$112.36 million	$1.09	21.62
Crown Castle	$4.26 billion	8.81	$444.00 million	$1.90	46.48

Crown Castle has higher revenue and earnings than Four Corners Property Trust. Four Corners Property Trust is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Crown Castle, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Four Corners Property Trust and Crown Castle’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Four Corners Property Trust	37.53%	7.24%	3.90%
Crown Castle	20.12%	-42.11%	4.11%

Dividends

Four Corners Property Trust pays an annual dividend of $1.52 per share and has a dividend yield of 6.4%. Crown Castle pays an annual dividend of $4.25 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.8%. Four Corners Property Trust pays out 139.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Crown Castle pays out 223.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Four Corners Property Trust has increased its dividend for 5 consecutive years. Four Corners Property Trust is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

About Four Corners Property Trust

Four Corners Property Trust, Inc. engages in the owning, acquisition, and leasing of properties for use in the restaurant and food-service related industries. It operates through the Real Estate Operations and Restaurant Operations segments. The Real Estate Operations segment consists of rental revenues generated by leasing restaurant properties. The Restaurant Operations segment includes the Kerrow Restaurant operating business. The company was founded on July 2, 2015 and is headquartered in Mill Valley, CA.

About Crown Castle

Crown Castle owns, operates and leases more than 40,000 cell towers and approximately 90,000 route miles of fiber supporting small cells and fiber solutions across every major U.S. market. This nationwide portfolio of communications infrastructure connects cities and communities to essential data, technology and wireless service – bringing information, ideas and innovations to the people and businesses that need them.