Reviewing W. P. Carey (NYSE:WPC) & SL Green Realty (NYSE:SLG)

SL Green Realty (NYSE:SLG) and W. P. Carey (NYSE:WPC) are both finance companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, risk, dividends, valuation, earnings, institutional ownership and profitability.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings for SL Green Realty and W. P. Carey, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
SL Green Realty	2	9	2	0	2.00
W. P. Carey	0	7	2	0	2.22

SL Green Realty currently has a consensus price target of $59.64, indicating a potential downside of 14.18%. W. P. Carey has a consensus price target of $61.13, indicating a potential downside of 2.57%. Given W. P. Carey’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe W. P. Carey is more favorable than SL Green Realty.

Profitability

This table compares SL Green Realty and W. P. Carey’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
SL Green Realty	-19.31%	-3.92%	-1.60%
W. P. Carey	34.83%	6.50%	3.18%

Dividends

SL Green Realty pays an annual dividend of $3.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.3%. W. P. Carey pays an annual dividend of $3.50 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.6%. SL Green Realty pays out -36.3% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. W. P. Carey pays out 133.1% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future.

Volatility & Risk

SL Green Realty has a beta of 1.83, indicating that its share price is 83% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, W. P. Carey has a beta of 0.94, indicating that its share price is 6% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

90.0% of SL Green Realty shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 73.7% of W. P. Carey shares are owned by institutional investors. 5.1% of SL Green Realty shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.1% of W. P. Carey shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares SL Green Realty and W. P. Carey”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
SL Green Realty	$913.71 million	4.95	-$557.30 million	($8.26)	-8.41
W. P. Carey	$1.64 billion	8.37	$708.33 million	$2.63	23.86

W. P. Carey has higher revenue and earnings than SL Green Realty. SL Green Realty is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than W. P. Carey, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

W. P. Carey beats SL Green Realty on 11 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About SL Green Realty

3SL Green Realty Corp., Manhattan’s largest office landlord, is a fully integrated real estate investment trust, or REIT, that is focused primarily on acquiring, managing and maximizing value of Manhattan commercial properties. As of June 30, 2022, SL Green held interests in 64 buildings totaling 34.4 million square feet. This included ownership interests in 26.3 million square feet of Manhattan buildings and 7.2 million square feet securing debt and preferred equity investments.

About W. P. Carey

W. P. Carey ranks among the largest net lease REITs with a well-diversified portfolio of high-quality, operationally critical commercial real estate, which includes 1,424 net lease properties covering approximately 173 million square feet and a portfolio of 89 self-storage operating properties as of December 31, 2023. With offices in New York, London, Amsterdam and Dallas, the company remains focused on investing primarily in single-tenant, industrial, warehouse and retail properties located in the U.S. and Northern and Western Europe, under long-term net leases with built-in rent escalations.