Patria Investments (NYSE:PAX) vs. MSC Income Fund (NYSE:MSIF) Critical Contrast

Patria Investments (NYSE:PAX) and MSC Income Fund (NYSE:MSIF) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, profitability, analyst recommendations, dividends, risk, valuation and institutional ownership.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations for Patria Investments and MSC Income Fund, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Patria Investments	3	1	1	0	1.60
MSC Income Fund	0	3	3	1	2.71

Patria Investments presently has a consensus price target of $12.75, suggesting a potential upside of 33.93%. MSC Income Fund has a consensus price target of $14.10, suggesting a potential upside of 20.19%. Given Patria Investments’ higher possible upside, research analysts plainly believe Patria Investments is more favorable than MSC Income Fund.

Profitability

This table compares Patria Investments and MSC Income Fund’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Patria Investments	19.91%	38.68%	15.84%
MSC Income Fund	N/A	N/A	N/A

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Patria Investments and MSC Income Fund”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Patria Investments	$428.00 million	1.48	$73.40 million	$0.44	21.64
MSC Income Fund	$110.26 million	5.02	$100.90 million	$2.14	5.48

MSC Income Fund has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Patria Investments. MSC Income Fund is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Patria Investments, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

96.3% of Patria Investments shares are held by institutional investors. 58.1% of Patria Investments shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.5% of MSC Income Fund shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Summary

Patria Investments beats MSC Income Fund on 8 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Patria Investments

Patria Investments Limited operates as a private market investment firm focused on investing in Latin America. The company offers asset management services to investors focusing on private equity funds, infrastructure development funds, co-investments funds, constructivist equity funds, and real estate and credit funds. Patria Investments Limited was founded in 1994 and is headquartered in Grand Cayman, the Cayman Islands.