IRON MOUNTAIN INC (IRM): what the price requires
At today's price, IRON MOUNTAIN INC (IRM) is priced for today's economics sustained for ~9.6 years. boothcheck doesn't publish a fair value or a price target; it shows what the price assumes, so you can judge whether that bar is too high.
Generated: 2026-07-14 · Exported: 2026-07-16 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/IRM
Headline
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Ticker | IRM |
| Company | IRON MOUNTAIN INC |
| Current price | $121.49/sh |
| Composition | Global RIM Business 87% / Global Data Center Business 13% |
What The Price Requires (Inversion)
The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Inversion basis | reit |
| Top-of-range FFO growth must hold for | 9.6y |
| Price-to-FFO | 30.9x |
| FFO yield | 3.2% |
Solve inputs: computed at a 10.6% cost of equity; growth searched up to the 15% ceiling; each 1pp moves the implied horizon ~2.6 years.
Reconcile: at the x-ray's 9.3% required return this reads ~6.3 years; the models below use their own rates.
How unusual the bet is: extreme
| Reference | Value |
|---|---|
| vs own history | +0.49σ |
| cohort percentile (of 88 peers) | 97 |
| sustained it ~9.6 years at this level | 54% |
Valuation X-Ray
Asset, earnings-power and peer-multiple models all land far below the price; ONLY the growth-DCF reaches it. The bet is durable compounding the static frames structurally cannot price (a moat/durability premium).
How the valuation models price the stock relative to the market price. Price/FV above 1.0 means the market pays more than that lens defends (expensive); at or below 1.0 the lens can defend the price.
| Family | Median price/FV | Models | Reads |
|---|---|---|---|
| Asset | — | 0 | — |
| Earnings | 2.09x | 2 | expensive |
| Relative | 1.70x | 6 | expensive |
| Growth | 1.24x | 4 | expensive |
Families that justify the price: Growth Families that call it expensive: Earnings, Relative
The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 6.3%); the inversion above states its own rate.
Per-Model Detail (n=12)
| Model | Family | FV | Price/FV | Applicable | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DCF Perpetual Growth | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| DCF Exit Multiple | Growth | $149.60 | 0.81x | yes | Exit EV/EBITDA: 21.7x / 23.7x / 25.7x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull), 6yr |
| Relative Valuation | Relative | $121.46 | 1.00x | yes | P/E 35x (static sector reference · 2026-04), scenarios: 28.5x / 35.0x / 41.5x (bear / base = reference held flat / bull), EV/EBITDA 20x |
| Simple DDM | Growth | $39.88 | 3.05x | yes | DPS $3.69, g=0.0% (sustainable: ROE (TTM) × retention; not the terminal-growth assumption), ke=9.3% |
| Two-Stage DDM | Growth | $87.17 | 1.39x | yes | Stage 1: 10% for 5yr, Stage 2: 3.5% perpetual |
| Simple Excess Return | Asset | — | — | no | — |
| Two-Stage Excess Return | Asset | — | — | no | — |
| Discounted Future Market Cap | Growth | $112.41 | 1.08x | yes | Rev $7.2B, growth 16% (input: historical growth; tapered), Terminal P/S: 4.1x / 5.0x / 5.9x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull, cap 12x) |
| Peter Lynch Fair Value | Relative | $46.92 | 2.59x | yes | FFO/share $3.91, growth 10% (input: historical FFO/share growth, 10y median), PEG=12.87 (Overvalued) |
| Margin Trajectory | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Earnings Power Value | Earnings | $0.01 | 12149.00x | yes | Normalized EBIT (5y avg op income, one-time charges added back) $1.08B × (1−15%) / WACC 6.3% → EPV (no growth) (excluded from median) |
| Residual Income | Asset | — | — | no | — |
| Graham Number | Asset | — | — | no | — |
| EV/EBITDA Relative | Relative | $92.41 | 1.31x | yes | EBITDA $2.36B × sector EV/EBITDA 20.0x |
| FCF Yield | Earnings | — | — | no | — |
| SBC-Adj FCF Yield | Earnings | — | — | no | — |
| Ben Graham Formula | Earnings | $92.72 | 1.31x | yes | FFO/share $3.91 × (8.5 + 2×9.9%) × (4.4 / 5.3%) |
| ROIC-Justified P/B | Asset | — | — | no | — |
| P/Sales Sector | Relative | $145.47 | 0.84x | yes | Revenue $7.25B × sector P/S 6.0x |
| PEG Fair Value | Relative | $58.05 | 2.09x | yes | FFO/share $3.91 × (PEG 1.5 × growth 9.9% (input: historical FFO/share growth, 10y median)) → PE 14.8x |
| Earnings Yield | Earnings | $42.27 | 2.87x | yes | FFO/share $3.91 / required return 9.3% (Rf 4.3% + ERP 5.0%) |
| Funds From Operations Multiple | Relative | $55.46 | 2.19x | yes | FFO/share $3.91 × 14.2x P/FFO (route cohort median, n=85); FFO $1.17B (FFO incl. D&A + impairments, FY2025, companyfacts), shares 299M |
| Clinical Phase NPV | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Merton | Asset | — | — | no | — |
| V5 Mechanical | — | — | — | no | — |
Solvency
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Net debt (REIT basis) | $17.4b |
| Net debt / FFO | 14.87x |
| Fixed-charge coverage (FFO basis) | 2.4x |
| Funds from operations (trailing) | $1.2b |
| Share count CAGR (dilution) | 0.6% |
| Burning cash | no |
REIT basis: leverage is read against funds from operations (FFO), not depreciation-gutted operating income. The header's implied growth runs on ADJUSTED FFO — FFO minus recurring maintenance capex — so the header's multiple and this leverage ratio use bases that differ by that capex; neither substitutes for the other.
Bullet Takeaways
- Iron Mountain began as the company that stores businesses' paper records in warehouses, and that boring, sticky base now funds a fast-growing data center and digital business that is reshaping what the company is.
- The single most decisive number is organic growth: it hit 17% in the most recent quarter, the highest rate in over 25 years, with data center revenue up 47% and AFFO per share up 22%.
- The defining risk is the price plus the leverage: the earnings-power method calls the stock expensive, and net lease-adjusted leverage sits near 4.8 times, so the bet is that the data center growth keeps justifying the premium.
Bull Case
One number tells the whole story of Iron Mountain's transformation: 17% organic growth, the fastest in more than a quarter century for a company most investors still think of as a paper-storage business. That figure is the proof that the old image is wrong. The records-management business, storing physical documents in warehouses, is the cash-generative foundation, and it remains the majority of revenue, but the growth now comes from layering higher-value businesses on top of those customer relationships and that real estate.
The data center business is the engine, and it is scaling fast. Data center revenue jumped 47% to $255 million in the most recent quarter on strong leasing activity, and the asset-lifecycle-management and digital businesses are growing even faster, with ALM up 92%. The strategic logic is that Iron Mountain already has the trusted relationship with corporate customers for safeguarding their most sensitive information; extending that trust from paper records to digital storage, secure data centers, and IT-asset disposal is a natural adjacency rather than a leap into an unrelated field. The 10-K frames the strategy as investing in "data centers, digital solutions, ALM business and other complementary businesses" alongside the storage core.
The financial profile is a REIT that is actually growing. Total revenue rose 22% to $1.94 billion, adjusted EBITDA rose 22% at a 36.6% margin, and AFFO per share, the cash metric that matters most for a REIT, grew 22% to $1.43. Management raised full-year guidance on the strength of the quarter. The physical records base is the annuity, durable, recurring, with customers who rarely leave because moving decades of archived files is a project no one wants, and the data center and digital businesses are the growth the annuity funds. The bull case is a stable cash foundation financing a genuine secular growth story.
Bear Case
Begin with the plain observation rather than a ratio: Iron Mountain is being valued as a high-growth data center REIT, but it is fundamentally a leveraged company whose largest business, physical records storage, grows slowly and faces secular decline as the world digitizes. The market is paying a growth multiple, and the question is whether the genuinely fast-growing pieces are large enough to carry a valuation the whole company's economics do not yet support.
The price-to-fundamentals disconnect shows up in the methods. The price is reached only by the relative-multiple and forward-growth families; the earnings-power lens calls the stock expensive against what it actually earns. That is the signal that the premium rests on the growth continuing at its recent pace. The data center and ALM businesses are growing 47% and 92%, but they are the smaller part of a company whose Global RIM records business, though at a revenue record, grows in the low-to-mid single digits and ultimately depends on companies keeping paper. If the high-growth segments decelerate or data center leasing economics tighten as the AI-driven build wave matures, the multiple that the forward-growth method needs has nothing to grow into.
The leverage is the amplifier and the part that distinguishes this from a clean compounder. Iron Mountain carries net debt of roughly $17 billion, and net lease-adjusted leverage sits near 4.8 times, which management noted is its best level since converting to a REIT but is still substantial. Building data centers is capital-intensive, and a growth-by-investment REIT has to keep raising and deploying capital, which the 10-K acknowledges carries the risk of "insufficient revenues to offset expenses and liabilities associated with new investments". The dividend, the leverage, and the data center capex all compete for the same cash. The bull sees a transformation; the bear sees a heavily indebted storage company priced for data center growth, where any stumble in the fast-growing minority of the business pressures both the multiple and the balance sheet at once.
Valuation
For a REIT the right lens is AFFO and the growth behind it, and on that basis Iron Mountain is priced for its transformation to continue. AFFO per share grew 22% to $1.43 in the most recent quarter, and the price embeds an assumption that the data center and digital businesses keep compounding fast enough to pull the whole company along. That is the bet, and the inversion implies an unusually long duration of above-average growth.
The methods divide along the transformation. The relative-multiple and forward-growth families reach the price; the earnings-power lens sits below it and calls the stock expensive against current earnings. That gap is the growth premium, and it is specifically a premium on the data center and ALM businesses sustaining their pace, because the records-storage core alone does not grow fast enough to justify the multiple. The clearest read is that the market is valuing Iron Mountain on the trajectory of its fastest-growing segments rather than on the blended economics of the whole. Among data center and diversified REIT peers, it is priced closer to the pure data center names than its revenue mix, still majority records storage, would suggest.
Solvency is where the caution lives. Net debt of roughly $17 billion and net lease-adjusted leverage near 4.8 times mean the equity is geared, and a capital-intensive growth strategy keeps the company reliant on raising and deploying capital efficiently. The share count has been roughly stable, so the growth is debt-and-cash-funded rather than dilutive, but the leverage is the amplifier on any disappointment. The decisive variable is the durability of the data center and digital growth: the price is fair if that 17% organic pace proves sustainable, and stretched if it reverts toward the low-growth gravity of the records-storage base.
Catalysts
The most recent quarter, the first of 2026, was a record across every key metric. Total revenue rose 22% year over year to $1.94 billion, organic growth reached 17%, the highest rate in more than 25 years, adjusted EBITDA rose 22% to $708 million at a 36.6% margin, and AFFO per share grew 22% to $1.43. The growth was led by the newer businesses: data center revenue jumped 47% to $255 million on strong leasing, ALM revenue rose 92% to $232 million, and the legacy Global RIM records business still posted a quarterly revenue record of $1.4 billion.
Management responded by raising full-year 2026 guidance. Revenue guidance increased by $175 million at the midpoint to $7.825 billion to $7.925 billion, and AFFO guidance rose to $1.735 billion to $1.755 billion, or $5.79 to $5.86 per share. Adjusted EBITDA is now guided to grow about 14% at the midpoint.
The forward watch items are the data center leasing pipeline and the leverage path. Net lease-adjusted leverage ended near 4.8 times, the company's best level since converting to a REIT in 2014, and the trajectory of that figure against the capital-intensive data center buildout is the financial signal to track. Because the valuation rests on the fast-growing segments, the pace of data center and digital growth in each subsequent quarter is what confirms or challenges the premium the price carries.
Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)
Global RIM Business (reported)
- EXR (Extra Space Storage Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- COLD (AMERICOLD REALTY TRUST, INC.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- LINE (Lineage, Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- EQIX (EQUINIX INC)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- AMT (AMERICAN TOWER CORP /MA/)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- SBAC (SBA COMMUNICATIONS CORPORATION)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- GLPI (Gaming and Leisure Properties, Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- CXW (CORECIVIC, INC.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
Global Data Center Business (reported)
- EQIX (EQUINIX INC)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- DLR (DIGITAL REALTY TRUST, INC.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- VNET (VNET Group, Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
Methodology Note
- Priced-in inversion: the valuation is inverted on the current price to recover the operating-income growth, duration, and steady-state margin the price embeds (ROE for financials, FFO growth for REITs).
- Valuation x-ray: the valuation models, grouped into four families (asset, earnings, relative, growth). Each model is expressed as a price/FV ratio (distance from price), not a point fair-value estimate. The spread across families is the disagreement.
- Solvency: net cash/debt, net-debt-to-NOPAT, interest coverage, and share-count CAGR from EDGAR financials (net debt / FFO and fixed-charge coverage for REITs; regulatory-capital framing for financials).
- Peer cohorts: per-segment comparables with deep-linkable SEC filing citations.
Fundamentals sourced from SEC EDGAR filings. Current price from Databento. The priced-in inversion and valuation x-ray are computed by the boothcheck engine; narrative composed by AI from the structured data.
Sources
Iron Mountain Q1 2026 earnings release