Reviewing Retail Opportunity Investments (NASDAQ:ROIC) & CTO Realty Growth (NYSE:CTO)

CTO Realty Growth (NYSE:CTO) and Retail Opportunity Investments (NASDAQ:ROIC) are both finance companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, risk, earnings, profitability, analyst recommendations, dividends and valuation.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares CTO Realty Growth and Retail Opportunity Investments”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
CTO Realty Growth	$109.12 million	5.49	$5.53 million	$0.59	33.87
Retail Opportunity Investments	$327.73 million	6.88	$34.53 million	$0.46	38.04

Retail Opportunity Investments has higher revenue and earnings than CTO Realty Growth. CTO Realty Growth is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Retail Opportunity Investments, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Dividends

CTO Realty Growth pays an annual dividend of $1.52 per share and has a dividend yield of 7.6%. Retail Opportunity Investments pays an annual dividend of $0.60 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.4%. CTO Realty Growth pays out 257.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Retail Opportunity Investments pays out 130.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future.

Profitability

This table compares CTO Realty Growth and Retail Opportunity Investments’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
CTO Realty Growth	17.10%	4.04%	1.92%
Retail Opportunity Investments	17.38%	4.32%	1.96%

Insider & Institutional Ownership

67.2% of CTO Realty Growth shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 97.2% of Retail Opportunity Investments shares are held by institutional investors. 5.3% of CTO Realty Growth shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 3.0% of Retail Opportunity Investments shares are held by 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.

Volatility & Risk

CTO Realty Growth has a beta of 0.78, suggesting that its share price is 22% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Retail Opportunity Investments has a beta of 1.45, suggesting that its share price is 45% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings for CTO Realty Growth and Retail Opportunity Investments, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
CTO Realty Growth	0	0	1	2	3.67
Retail Opportunity Investments	1	6	0	0	1.86

CTO Realty Growth presently has a consensus target price of $21.00, suggesting a potential upside of 5.08%. Retail Opportunity Investments has a consensus target price of $16.20, suggesting a potential downside of 7.43%. Given CTO Realty Growth’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe CTO Realty Growth is more favorable than Retail Opportunity Investments.

Summary

Retail Opportunity Investments beats CTO Realty Growth on 10 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About CTO Realty Growth

CTO Realty Growth, Inc. is a publicly traded real estate investment trust that owns and operates a portfolio of high-quality, retail-based properties located primarily in higher growth markets in the United States. CTO also externally manages and owns a meaningful interest in Alpine Income Property Trust, Inc. (NYSE: PINE), a publicly traded net lease REIT.

About Retail Opportunity Investments

Retail Opportunity Investments Corp. (Nasdaq: ROIC), is a fully integrated, self-managed real estate investment trust (REIT) that specializes in the acquisition, ownership and management of grocery-anchored shopping centers located in densely populated, metropolitan markets across the West Coast. As of December 31, 2023, ROIC owned 94 shopping centers encompassing approximately 10.6 million square feet. ROIC is the largest publicly-traded, grocery-anchored shopping center REIT focused exclusively on the West Coast. ROIC is a member of the S&P SmallCap 600 Index and has investment-grade corporate debt ratings from Moody's Investor Services, S&P Global Ratings and Fitch Ratings, Inc.