Reviewing Ares Capital (NASDAQ:ARCC) & Carlyle Secured Lending (NASDAQ:CGBD)

Carlyle Secured Lending (NASDAQ:CGBD) and Ares Capital (NASDAQ:ARCC) are both finance companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, earnings, dividends, valuation, risk, profitability and institutional ownership.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and target prices for Carlyle Secured Lending and Ares Capital, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Carlyle Secured Lending	0	4	3	0	2.43
Ares Capital	0	3	8	0	2.73

Carlyle Secured Lending currently has a consensus target price of $12.50, suggesting a potential upside of 25.13%. Ares Capital has a consensus target price of $20.40, suggesting a potential upside of 8.74%. Given Carlyle Secured Lending’s higher possible upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Carlyle Secured Lending is more favorable than Ares Capital.

Risk and Volatility

Carlyle Secured Lending has a beta of 0.62, meaning that its stock price is 38% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Ares Capital has a beta of 0.56, meaning that its stock price is 44% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Carlyle Secured Lending and Ares Capital”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Carlyle Secured Lending	$63.06 million	11.01	$69.97 million	$0.71	14.07
Ares Capital	$1.17 billion	11.47	$1.30 billion	$1.35	13.90

Ares Capital has higher revenue and earnings than Carlyle Secured Lending. Ares Capital is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Carlyle Secured Lending, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

24.5% of Carlyle Secured Lending shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 27.4% of Ares Capital shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.4% of Carlyle Secured Lending shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.5% of Ares Capital shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Dividends

Carlyle Secured Lending pays an annual dividend of $1.40 per share and has a dividend yield of 14.0%. Ares Capital pays an annual dividend of $1.92 per share and has a dividend yield of 10.2%. Carlyle Secured Lending pays out 197.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Ares Capital pays out 142.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future.

Profitability

This table compares Carlyle Secured Lending and Ares Capital’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Carlyle Secured Lending	19.52%	8.99%	4.01%
Ares Capital	30.91%	9.80%	4.50%

Summary

Ares Capital beats Carlyle Secured Lending on 12 of the 16 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Carlyle Secured Lending

Carlyle Secured Lending, Inc. is business development company specializing in first lien debt, senior secured loans, second lien senior secured loan unsecured debt, mezzanine debt and investments in equities. It specializes in directly investing. It specializes in middle market. It targets healthcare and pharmaceutical, aerospace and defense, high tech industries, business services, software, beverage food and tobacco, hotel gamming and leisure, banking finance insurance and in real estate sector. The fund seeks to invest across United States of America, Luxembourg, Cayman Islands, Cyprus, and United Kingdom. It invests in companies with EBITDA between $25 million and $100 million.

About Ares Capital

Ares Capital Corporation is a business development company specializing in acquisition, recapitalization, mezzanine debt, restructurings, rescue financing, and leveraged buyout transactions of middle market companies. It also makes growth capital and general refinancing. It prefers to make investments in companies engaged in the basic and growth manufacturing, business services, consumer products, health care products and services, and information technology service sectors. The fund will also consider investments in industries such as restaurants, retail, oil and gas, and technology sectors. It focuses on investments in Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Southeast and Southwest regions from its New York office, the Midwest region, from the Chicago office, and the Western region from the Los Angeles office. The fund typically invests between $20 million and $200 million and a maximum of $400 million in companies with an EBITDA between $10 million and $250 million. It makes debt investments between $10 million and $100 million The fund invests through revolvers, first lien loans, warrants, unitranche structures, second lien loans, mezzanine debt, private high yield, junior capital, subordinated debt, and non-control preferred and common equity. The fund also selectively considers third-party-led senior and subordinated debt financings and opportunistically considers the purchase of stressed and discounted debt positions. The fund prefers to be an agent and/or lead the transactions in which it invests. The fund also seeks board representation in its portfolio companies.