Acadia Realty Trust (NYSE:AKR) versus Urban Edge Properties (NYSE:UE) Critical Review

Acadia Realty Trust (NYSE:AKR) and Urban Edge Properties (NYSE:UE) are both mid-cap finance companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, earnings, dividends, profitability, risk, valuation and analyst recommendations.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current recommendations for Acadia Realty Trust and Urban Edge Properties, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Acadia Realty Trust	1	2	2	0	2.20
Urban Edge Properties	0	3	2	0	2.40

Acadia Realty Trust presently has a consensus price target of $22.33, suggesting a potential upside of 17.67%. Urban Edge Properties has a consensus price target of $22.25, suggesting a potential upside of 16.07%. Given Acadia Realty Trust’s higher possible upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Acadia Realty Trust is more favorable than Urban Edge Properties.

Volatility and Risk

Acadia Realty Trust has a beta of 1.47, indicating that its share price is 47% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Urban Edge Properties has a beta of 1.26, indicating that its share price is 26% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Acadia Realty Trust and Urban Edge Properties’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Acadia Realty Trust	5.31%	0.79%	0.45%
Urban Edge Properties	22.86%	7.74%	3.21%

Dividends

Acadia Realty Trust pays an annual dividend of $0.80 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.2%. Urban Edge Properties pays an annual dividend of $0.76 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.0%. Acadia Realty Trust pays out 500.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Urban Edge Properties pays out 90.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Acadia Realty Trust has raised its dividend for 2 consecutive years and Urban Edge Properties has raised its dividend for 2 consecutive years.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Acadia Realty Trust and Urban Edge Properties”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Acadia Realty Trust	$359.69 million	6.91	$21.65 million	$0.16	118.63
Urban Edge Properties	$444.97 million	5.42	$72.56 million	$0.84	22.82

Urban Edge Properties has higher revenue and earnings than Acadia Realty Trust. Urban Edge Properties is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Acadia Realty Trust, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

97.7% of Acadia Realty Trust shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 94.9% of Urban Edge Properties shares are held by institutional investors. 2.8% of Acadia Realty Trust shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 2.4% of Urban Edge Properties shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Urban Edge Properties beats Acadia Realty Trust on 8 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Acadia Realty Trust

Acadia Realty Trust is an equity real estate investment trust focused on delivering long-term, profitable growth via its dual Core Portfolio and Fund operating platforms and its disciplined, location-driven investment strategy. Acadia Realty Trust is accomplishing this goal by building a best-in-class core real estate portfolio with meaningful concentrations of assets in the nation's most dynamic corridors; making profitable opportunistic and value-add investments through its series of discretionary, institutional funds; and maintaining a strong balance sheet.

About Urban Edge Properties

Urban Edge Properties is a NYSE listed real estate investment trust focused on owning, managing, acquiring, developing, and redeveloping retail real estate in urban communities, primarily in the Washington, D.C. to Boston corridor. Urban Edge owns 76 properties totaling 17.1 million square feet of gross leasable area.