Financial Contrast: Pebblebrook Hotel Trust (NYSE:PEB) & Crown Castle (NYSE:CCI)

Pebblebrook Hotel Trust (NYSE:PEB) and Crown Castle (NYSE:CCI) are both finance companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, institutional ownership, dividends, risk, earnings, analyst recommendations and valuation.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

90.8% of Crown Castle shares are owned by institutional investors. 2.6% of Pebblebrook Hotel Trust shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.4% of Crown Castle shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings for Pebblebrook Hotel Trust and Crown Castle, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Pebblebrook Hotel Trust	1	3	2	0	2.17
Crown Castle	1	10	4	1	2.31

Pebblebrook Hotel Trust currently has a consensus price target of $14.67, indicating a potential upside of 14.80%. Crown Castle has a consensus price target of $110.13, indicating a potential upside of 24.27%. Given Crown Castle’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Crown Castle is more favorable than Pebblebrook Hotel Trust.

Dividends

Pebblebrook Hotel Trust pays an annual dividend of $0.04 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.3%. Crown Castle pays an annual dividend of $6.26 per share and has a dividend yield of 7.1%. Pebblebrook Hotel Trust pays out -13.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Crown Castle pays out 222.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future.

Volatility and Risk

Pebblebrook Hotel Trust has a beta of 1.85, suggesting that its share price is 85% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Crown Castle has a beta of 0.88, suggesting that its share price is 12% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Pebblebrook Hotel Trust and Crown Castle”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Pebblebrook Hotel Trust	$1.42 billion	1.08	-$78.02 million	($0.29)	-44.05
Crown Castle	$6.98 billion	5.52	$1.50 billion	$2.82	31.42

Crown Castle has higher revenue and earnings than Pebblebrook Hotel Trust. Pebblebrook Hotel 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 Pebblebrook Hotel Trust and Crown Castle’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Pebblebrook Hotel Trust	0.25%	0.13%	0.06%
Crown Castle	18.59%	20.98%	3.20%

Summary

Crown Castle beats Pebblebrook Hotel Trust on 14 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Pebblebrook Hotel Trust

Pebblebrook Hotel Trust (NYSE: PEB) is a publicly traded real estate investment trust ("REIT") and the largest owner of urban and resort lifestyle hotels and resorts in the United States. The Company owns 47 hotels and resorts, totaling approximately 12,200 guest rooms across 13 urban and resort markets.

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.