Head to Head Survey: MFA Financial (NYSE:MFA) & DigitalBridge Group (NYSE:DBRG)

DigitalBridge Group (NYSE:DBRG) and MFA Financial (NYSE:MFA) are both finance companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, risk, profitability, dividends, valuation, institutional ownership and earnings.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and price targets for DigitalBridge Group and MFA Financial, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
DigitalBridge Group	2	1	5	2	2.70
MFA Financial	1	3	4	0	2.38

DigitalBridge Group currently has a consensus target price of $16.14, suggesting a potential upside of 28.27%. MFA Financial has a consensus target price of $11.75, suggesting a potential upside of 28.15%. Given DigitalBridge Group’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe DigitalBridge Group is more favorable than MFA Financial.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares DigitalBridge Group and MFA Financial”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
DigitalBridge Group	$228.14 million	10.05	$70.52 million	($0.04)	-314.63
MFA Financial	$723.97 million	1.30	$119.25 million	$0.87	10.54

MFA Financial has higher revenue and earnings than DigitalBridge Group. DigitalBridge Group is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than MFA Financial, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

92.7% of DigitalBridge Group shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 65.3% of MFA Financial shares are owned by institutional investors. 3.6% of DigitalBridge Group shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.8% of MFA Financial shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares DigitalBridge Group and MFA Financial’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
DigitalBridge Group	18.57%	4.14%	1.97%
MFA Financial	17.62%	8.61%	1.39%

Risk and Volatility

DigitalBridge Group has a beta of 1.66, suggesting that its stock price is 66% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, MFA Financial has a beta of 1.7, suggesting that its stock price is 70% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Dividends

DigitalBridge Group pays an annual dividend of $0.04 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.3%. MFA Financial pays an annual dividend of $1.44 per share and has a dividend yield of 15.7%. DigitalBridge Group pays out -100.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. MFA Financial pays out 165.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. MFA Financial has increased its dividend for 1 consecutive years. MFA Financial is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

Summary

DigitalBridge Group beats MFA Financial on 10 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks.

About DigitalBridge Group

DigitalBridge is an infrastructure investment firm specializing in digital infrastructure assets. They provide services to institutional investors. They primarily invest in data centers, cell towers, fiber networks, small cells, and edge infrastructure. DigitalBridge Group, Inc. was founded in 1991 and is headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida with additional offices in Los Angles, California, and New York New York.

About MFA Financial

MFA Financial, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates as a real estate investment trust in the United States. It invests in residential mortgage securities, including non-agency mortgage-backed securities, agency MBS, and credit risk transfer securities; residential whole loans, including purchased performing loans, purchased credit deteriorated, and non-performing loans; and mortgage servicing rights related assets. The company was incorporated in 1997 and is based in New York, New York.