STWD vs GDS Comparison

Starwood Property Trust Inc is a real estate investment trust principally engaged in originating, acquiring, and managing commercial mortgage loans, commercial mortgage-backed securities, and other real estate investments in the U.S., Australia, and Europe. The company has four reportable business segments: Commercial and Residential Lending, Infrastructure Lending, Property, and Investing and Servicing. The majority of its revenue is generated from the Commercial and Residential Lending segment, which engages mainly in originating, acquiring, financing, and managing commercial first mortgages, non-agency residential mortgages (residential loans), commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS), residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS), and other real estate and related debt investments.

GDS Holdings started as an IT service provider in 2001, then moved to the data center business with its first self-developed data center opening in 2010. The company now develops and operates data centers in China and also builds, operates, and transfers data centers for other clients. It offers colocation and managed services and mainly targets hyperscale cloud service customers who take large areas of its data centers or even whole data centers under long-term contracts. Its data centers are located predominantly in and around the Tier 1 cities in China, and it has also started expanding into Southeast Asia via the now 23% owned DayOne. GDS listed on the Nasdaq in 2016 and completed a secondary listing in Hong Kong in 2020.