Portsmouth, New Hampshire-based Iron Mountain Incorporated (IRM) is the global leader in storage and information management solutions. Its offerings included data centers, secure records storage, information management, asset lifecycle management, secure destruction, art storage, and more. With a market cap of $32.7 billion, Iron Mountain serves over 240,000 customers globally.
Companies worth $10 billion or more are generally described as "large-cap stocks," Iron Mountain fits right into that category, with its market cap exceeding this threshold, reflecting its substantial size, influence, and dominance in the specialty REIT industry. It has a track record of protecting and elevating the power of its customers' work over the years.
Despite its notable strengths, IRM has slipped 15.5% from its all-time high of $130.24 achieved on Oct. 25. Furthermore, the stock has plunged over 5% in the past three months, significantly underperforming the S&P 500 Index’s ($SPX) 7.4% surge during the same time frame.
However, over the longer term, Iron Mountain’s performance has remained more than impressive. IRM stock prices have soared 57.3% on a YTD basis and 62.1% over the past 52 weeks, outperforming SPX’s 26.9% gains in 2024 and 28.2% returns over the past year.
To confirm the overall bullish trend and the recent downturn, IRM has traded consistently above its 200-day moving average over the past year and below its 50-day moving average since early November with some fluctuations.
Despite robust growth in topline, Iron Mountain’s stock prices plummeted nearly 9% after the release of its Q3 results on Nov. 6. The company reported an impressive 12.2% year-over-year growth in total revenues, reaching $1.6 billion, driven by growth in storage rental as well as service revenues. However, the company’s expenses have increased much faster than its revenues. Its overall operating expenses increased 13.5% year-over-year to more than $1.3 billion, along with a notable increase in other expenses. This has resulted in a $33.6 million net loss for the quarter compared to the $91 million net income reported in the year-ago quarter.
On a positive note, its adjusted funds from operations per share grew nearly 10.8% year-over-year to $1.13, exceeding analysts’ estimates.
IRM has also outperformed its peer Digital Realty Trust, Inc.’s (DLR) 37.5% gains in 2024 and 40% returns over the past year.
Despite the recent downturn, analysts remain optimistic about IRM’s long-term prospects. The stock has a consensus “Moderate Buy” rating among the eight analysts covering it. The mean price target of $122.25 suggests an 11% upside potential from current price levels.
