Critical Comparison: BRT Apartments (NYSE:BRT) & Peakstone Realty Trust (NYSE:PKST)

BRT Apartments (NYSE:BRT) and Peakstone Realty Trust (NYSE:PKST) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, institutional ownership, profitability, analyst recommendations, risk, valuation and dividends.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares BRT Apartments and Peakstone Realty Trust”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
BRT Apartments	$93.62 million	3.75	$3.87 million	($0.53)	-35.24
Peakstone Realty Trust	$254.28 million	1.99	-$550.58 million	($1.18)	-11.81

BRT Apartments has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Peakstone Realty Trust. BRT Apartments is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Peakstone Realty Trust, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Risk and Volatility

BRT Apartments has a beta of 1.07, suggesting that its stock price is 7% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Peakstone Realty Trust has a beta of 2.57, suggesting that its stock price is 157% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Dividends

BRT Apartments pays an annual dividend of $1.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.4%. Peakstone Realty Trust pays an annual dividend of $0.90 per share and has a dividend yield of 6.5%. BRT Apartments pays out -188.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Peakstone Realty Trust pays out -76.3% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

29.1% of BRT Apartments shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 39.0% of Peakstone Realty Trust shares are owned by institutional investors. 40.2% of BRT Apartments shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.5% of Peakstone Realty Trust shares are owned 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.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current recommendations for BRT Apartments and Peakstone Realty Trust, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
BRT Apartments	0	0	2	0	3.00
Peakstone Realty Trust	0	1	0	0	2.00

BRT Apartments currently has a consensus target price of $22.50, indicating a potential upside of 20.45%. Peakstone Realty Trust has a consensus target price of $13.00, indicating a potential downside of 6.74%. Given BRT Apartments’ stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities analysts clearly believe BRT Apartments is more favorable than Peakstone Realty Trust.

Profitability

This table compares BRT Apartments and Peakstone Realty Trust’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
BRT Apartments	-9.94%	-4.27%	-1.35%
Peakstone Realty Trust	-18.26%	-3.61%	-1.59%

Summary

BRT Apartments beats Peakstone Realty Trust on 10 of the 16 factors compared between the two stocks.

About BRT Apartments

BRT is a real estate investment trust that owns, operates and, to a lesser extent, holds interests in joint ventures that own multi-family properties. As of December 31, 2023, BRT owns or has interests in 28 multi-family properties with 7,707 units in 11 states.

About Peakstone Realty Trust

Peakstone Realty Trust (NYSE: PKST) is an internally managed, real estate investment trust (REIT) that owns and operates a high-quality, newer-vintage portfolio of predominantly single-tenant industrial and office properties. These assets are generally leased to creditworthy tenants under long-term net lease agreements with contractual rent escalations. As of March 31, 2023, Peakstone's wholly-owned portfolio consists of 19 million square feet across 24 states in primarily high-growth, strategic coastal and sunbelt markets.