Uniti Group (NASDAQ:UNIT) vs. W.P. Carey (NYSE:WPC) Critical Analysis

Uniti Group (NASDAQ:UNIT) and W.P. Carey (NYSE:WPC) are both finance companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, earnings, valuation, profitability, dividends, institutional ownership and analyst recommendations.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

87.5% of Uniti Group shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 73.7% of W.P. Carey shares are owned by institutional investors. 2.7% of Uniti Group shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.0% of W.P. Carey shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Risk and Volatility

Uniti Group has a beta of 1.4, suggesting that its share price is 40% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, W.P. Carey has a beta of 0.76, suggesting that its share price is 24% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and price targets for Uniti Group and W.P. Carey, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Uniti Group	0	7	1	1	2.33
W.P. Carey	1	6	6	0	2.38

Uniti Group currently has a consensus target price of $11.14, suggesting a potential upside of 3.62%. W.P. Carey has a consensus target price of $77.83, suggesting a potential upside of 9.23%. Given W.P. Carey’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe W.P. Carey is more favorable than Uniti Group.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Uniti Group and W.P. Carey”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Uniti Group	$2.23 billion	1.17	$1.30 billion	$3.35	3.21
W.P. Carey	$1.72 billion	9.25	$466.36 million	$2.34	30.45

Uniti Group has higher revenue and earnings than W.P. Carey. Uniti Group 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.

Profitability

This table compares Uniti Group and W.P. Carey’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Uniti Group	39.61%	N/A	-3.44%
W.P. Carey	29.35%	6.29%	2.86%

Summary

Uniti Group beats W.P. Carey on 8 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Uniti Group

Uniti Group, Inc. is a real estate investment trust company, which engages in the acquisition, construction, and leasing of properties. It operates through the following business segments: Uniti Leasing, Uniti Fiber, and Corporate. The Uniti Leasing segment involves mission-critical communications assets on exclusive or shared-tenant basis, and dark fiber network. The Uniti Fiber segment includes the operation of infrastructure solutions, cell site backhauls, and dark fiber. The Corporate segment consists of office and shared service functions. The company was founded in February 2014 and is headquartered in Little Rock, AR.

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.