Critical Survey: Safestore (OTCMKTS:SFSHF) & Sonic Healthcare (OTCMKTS:SKHHY)

Safestore (OTCMKTS:SFSHF) and Sonic Healthcare (OTCMKTS:SKHHY) are both finance companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, earnings, risk, dividends, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership and valuation.

Profitability

This table compares Safestore and Sonic Healthcare’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Safestore	N/A	N/A	N/A
Sonic Healthcare	N/A	N/A	N/A

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Safestore and Sonic Healthcare”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Safestore	$284.91 million	5.74	$474.81 million	N/A	N/A
Sonic Healthcare	$5.94 billion	1.26	$337.11 million	N/A	N/A

Safestore has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Sonic Healthcare.

Volatility and Risk

Safestore has a beta of 1.09, suggesting that its stock price is 9% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Sonic Healthcare has a beta of 1.14, suggesting that its stock price is 14% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Dividends

Safestore pays an annual dividend of $0.09 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.3%. Sonic Healthcare pays an annual dividend of $0.49 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.1%.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for Safestore and Sonic Healthcare, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Safestore	0	1	0	1	3.00
Sonic Healthcare	0	1	1	0	2.50

Sonic Healthcare has a consensus target price of $30.15, suggesting a potential upside of 93.02%. Given Sonic Healthcare’s higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Sonic Healthcare is more favorable than Safestore.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

0.0% of Sonic Healthcare shares are owned by institutional investors. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Sonic Healthcare beats Safestore on 6 of the 10 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Safestore

Safestore is the UK’s largest self storage group with 190 stores on 31 October 2023, comprising 133 wholly owned stores in the UK (including 73 in London and the South East with the remainder in key metropolitan areas such as Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Sheffield, Leeds, Newcastle, and Bristol), 29 wholly owned stores in the Paris region, 11 stores in Spain, 11 stores in the Netherlands and 6 stores in Belgium. In addition, the Group operates 7 stores in Germany under a Joint Venture agreement with Carlyle. Safestore operates more self storage sites inside the M25 and in central Paris than any competitor providing more proximity to customers in the wealthiest and more densely populated UK and French markets. Safestore was founded in the UK in 1998. It acquired the French business “Une Pièce en Plus” (“UPP”) in 2004 which was founded in 1998 by the current Safestore Group CEO Frederic Vecchioli. Safestore has been listed on the London Stock Exchange since 2007. It entered the FTSE 250 index in October 2015. The Group provides storage to around 90,000 personal and business customers. As of 31 October 2023, Safestore had a maximum lettable area (“MLA”) of 8.090 million sq ft (excluding the expansion pipeline stores) of which 6.231 million sq ft was occupied. Safestore employs around 750 people in the UK, Paris, Spain, the Netherlands, and Belgium.

About Sonic Healthcare

Sonic Healthcare Limited offers medical diagnostic services to medical practitioners, hospitals, community health services, and their collective patients. The company provides laboratory medicine/pathology testing services, such as biochemistry, cytopathology, genetics, haematology, histopathology, immunoserology, microbiology, molecular pathology, prenatal testing, toxicology, and ancillary functions; and radiology services, including magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography (CT), ultrasound, X-ray, mammography, nuclear medicine, PET CT, interventional procedures, and bone mineral densitometry. It offers primary care medical services comprising general practice clinics, occupational health services, skin cancer clinics, after-hours general practice services, general practice IT solutions, and community-based healthcare services. The company operates in Australia, the United Kingdom, Ireland, the United States, Germany, Switzerland, New Zealand, Belgium, and internationally. Sonic Healthcare Limited was incorporated in 1934 and is headquartered in Sydney, Australia.