Analyzing Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE:ICE) & Carlyle Secured Lending (NASDAQ:CGBD)

Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE:ICE) and Carlyle Secured Lending (NASDAQ:CGBD) are both finance companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, earnings, dividends, risk, valuation, analyst recommendations and institutional ownership.

Dividends

Intercontinental Exchange pays an annual dividend of $2.08 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.3%. Carlyle Secured Lending pays an annual dividend of $1.40 per share and has a dividend yield of 13.1%. Intercontinental Exchange pays out 29.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Carlyle Secured Lending pays out 274.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Intercontinental Exchange has increased its dividend for 9 consecutive years.

Volatility and Risk

Intercontinental Exchange has a beta of 0.94, meaning that its share price is 6% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Carlyle Secured Lending has a beta of 0.66, meaning that its share price is 34% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

89.3% of Intercontinental Exchange shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 24.5% of Carlyle Secured Lending shares are held by institutional investors. 0.8% of Intercontinental Exchange shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.3% of Carlyle Secured Lending shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

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

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Intercontinental Exchange	30.08%	14.95%	2.77%
Carlyle Secured Lending	14.26%	8.85%	3.90%

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for Intercontinental Exchange and Carlyle Secured Lending, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Intercontinental Exchange	1	4	11	1	2.71
Carlyle Secured Lending	0	4	1	1	2.50

Intercontinental Exchange presently has a consensus target price of $186.31, suggesting a potential upside of 17.56%. Carlyle Secured Lending has a consensus target price of $11.33, suggesting a potential upside of 6.32%. Given Intercontinental Exchange’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Intercontinental Exchange is more favorable than Carlyle Secured Lending.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Intercontinental Exchange and Carlyle Secured Lending”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Intercontinental Exchange	$12.64 billion	7.04	$3.31 billion	$7.08	22.38
Carlyle Secured Lending	$255.57 million	2.87	$69.97 million	$0.51	20.90

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

Summary

Intercontinental Exchange beats Carlyle Secured Lending on 14 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Intercontinental Exchange

Intercontinental Exchange, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, engages in the provision of market infrastructure, data services, and technology solutions for financial institutions, corporations, and government entities in the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Singapore, India, Abu Dhabi, Israel, and Canada. It operates through three segments: Exchanges, Fixed Income and Data Services, and Mortgage Technology. The company operates regulated marketplaces for listing, trading, and clearing an array of derivatives contracts and financial securities, such as commodities, interest rates, foreign exchange, and equities, as well as corporate and exchange-traded funds; and trading venues, including regulated exchanges and clearing houses. It also offers energy, agricultural and metals, and financial futures and options; and cash equities and equity options, and over-the-counter and other markets, as well as listings and data and connectivity services. In addition, the company provides fixed income data and analytic, fixed income execution, CDS clearing, and other multi-asset class data and network services. Further, it offers proprietary and comprehensive mortgage origination platform, which serves residential mortgage loans; closing solutions that provides customers connectivity to the mortgage supply chain and facilitates the secure exchange of information; data and analytics services; and Data as a Service for lenders to access data and origination information. Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.

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.