Iron Mountain's raised 2026 forecast still sits below Wall Street's $8.04 billion

Iron Mountain·−0.06% — Iron Mountain, down 0.06 percent as of its last quote, the records-storage company that also builds data centers for the cloud platforms behind AI, beat Wall Street's estimates and raised its 2026 forecast on November 5↗, and its shares still fell 8.1% ¹. The reason is mechanical: the raise lands below the street, with full-year revenue guided to $7.95–8.02 billion against an $8.04 billion consensus ²³. Because the new forecast still sits under the street, the fall prices the signed data center backlog at nothing until it starts billing.

The quarter beat; the guide did not

Revenue rose 13.5% to $1.99 billion↗ ⁴, and adjusted FFO, the cash earnings measure that real estate investment trusts report, came to $1.53 a share against a $1.48 consensus ⁵. Fourth-quarter revenue was guided to about $2.03 billion against a $2.05 billion estimate ³. The Q4 adjusted-FFO guide of about $1.57 also came in below analyst estimates; only the adjusted-EBITDA guide of about $780 million matched consensus ⁶. JPMorgan cut its price target to $124 from $147 the next morning ². The shares closed November 6 at $106.52, below their 20-, 50- and 200-day averages ¹.

A signed lease becomes revenue only when the power comes on

Chief executive William Meaney's leasing program signed a record 102 megawatts of data center capacity in the quarter↗, 74 of them in India ⁷, and the revenue backlog now stands at $575 million ⁸. That capacity earns nothing until its buildings energize: about 325 megawatts are permitted with committed power, roughly two-thirds at the Richmond campus in Virginia, and come online over the next 24 months ⁷.

Once energized, the backlog would bill nearly $1.8 billion a year, against 2027 data center revenue guided above $1.3 billion ⁸. Holding that runway open cost $545 million of growth capex in the quarter ⁸.

The records business pays for the wait

The waiting is financed by the original business. Global records and information management, still the bulk of Iron Mountain, produced a record $630 million of adjusted EBITDA at a 44% margin ⁸. That cash stands behind a dividend the board raised 15% to $0.993 a quarter↗, with the payout ratio held in the low 60s ⁷⁸. Net lease-adjusted leverage sits at 4.8 times, the lowest since before the 2014 conversion to a real estate investment trust ⁸.

Two dates now decide what the backlog is worth

We covered the short case against this data center build on October 30 ¹. What is new this week is that a record leasing quarter, a raised forecast and a dividend increase still left the shares below every major moving average ¹. At the November 6 close, the raised dividend is about a 3.7% yield, and the records business covers it ¹⁸.

The leases are contracted and the power is committed. What the market stopped doing this week is paying for that schedule in advance, so the discount holds until the revenue appears in a quarterly report. Two disclosures could close it. One is a segment-reporting update promised for the next earnings call, which would let investors value the storage engine and the data center build separately. The other is an investor meeting and site tour in early March ⁷⁸.