Financial Analysis: Highlands REIT (OTCMKTS:HHDS) vs. Lineage (NASDAQ:LINE)

Lineage (NASDAQ:LINE) and Highlands REIT (OTCMKTS:HHDS) are both finance companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, valuation, earnings, institutional ownership, risk, analyst recommendations and profitability.

Volatility & Risk

Lineage has a beta of -0.15, meaning that its share price is 115% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Highlands REIT has a beta of 16.11, meaning that its share price is 1,511% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for Lineage and Highlands REIT, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Lineage	5	10	5	0	2.00
Highlands REIT	0	0	0	0	0.00

Lineage currently has a consensus price target of $44.56, suggesting a potential upside of 21.01%. Given Lineage’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Lineage is more favorable than Highlands REIT.

Profitability

This table compares Lineage and Highlands REIT’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Lineage	-3.30%	-1.85%	-0.93%
Highlands REIT	-25.09%	-4.66%	-2.80%

Institutional & Insider Ownership

0.0% of Highlands REIT shares are held by institutional investors. 71.9% of Lineage shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 4.0% of Highlands REIT shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Lineage and Highlands REIT”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Lineage	$5.34 billion	1.57	-$686.00 million	($0.79)	-46.61
Highlands REIT	$36.08 million	1.95	-$1.00 million	N/A	N/A

Highlands REIT has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Lineage.

Summary

Lineage beats Highlands REIT on 8 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Lineage

Lineage, Inc. is the world’s largest global temperature-controlled warehouse REIT with a network of over 480 strategically located facilities totaling over 84.1 million square feet and 3.0 billion cubic feet of capacity across countries in North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. Coupling end-to-end supply chain solutions and technology, Lineage partners with some of the world’s largest food and beverage producers, retailers, and distributors to help increase distribution efficiency, advance sustainability, minimize supply chain waste, and, most importantly, feed the world.

About Highlands REIT

We are a self-advised and self-administered real estate investment trust (REIT) created to own and manage substantially all of the non-core investment properties previously owned and managed by our former parent, InvenTrust Properties Corp., a Maryland corporation (InvenTrust). On April 28, 2016, we were spun-off from InvenTrust through a pro rata distribution (the Distribution) by InvenTrust of 100% of the outstanding shares of our common stock to holders of InvenTrust's common stock. Prior to or concurrent with the separation, we and InvenTrust engaged in certain reorganization transactions that were designed to consolidate substantially all of InvenTrust's remaining non-core investment properties in Highlands.