Financial Comparison: Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending (NCDL) and Its Rivals

Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending (NYSE:NCDL) is one of 1,744 public companies in the “Capital Markets” industry, but how does it contrast to its competitors? We will compare Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending to similar businesses based on the strength of its institutional ownership, dividends, profitability, analyst recommendations, valuation, risk and earnings.

Dividends

Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending pays an annual dividend of $1.44 per share and has a dividend yield of 12.2%. Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending pays out 161.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. As a group, “Capital Markets” companies pay a dividend yield of 3.2% and pay out 29.1% of their earnings in the form of a dividend.

Profitability

This table compares Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending and its competitors’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending	24.44%	9.60%	4.10%
Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending Competitors	318.50%	79.22%	3.72%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current recommendations for Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending and its competitors, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending	1	2	2	0	2.20
Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending Competitors	5560	20137	22477	642	2.37

Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending presently has a consensus target price of $13.25, indicating a potential upside of 12.19%. As a group, “Capital Markets” companies have a potential upside of 26.43%. Given Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending’s competitors stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending has less favorable growth aspects than its competitors.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

30.5% of shares of all “Capital Markets” companies are owned by institutional investors. 0.7% of Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 13.1% of shares of all “Capital Markets” companies are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending and its competitors top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending	$207.86 million	$65.61 million	13.27
Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending Competitors	$2.39 billion	$398.52 million	17.86

Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending’s competitors have higher revenue and earnings than Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending. Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than its competitors, indicating that it is currently more affordable than other companies in its industry.

Volatility and Risk

Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending has a beta of 0.55, meaning that its stock price is 45% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending’s competitors have a beta of 0.79, meaning that their average stock price is 21% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending competitors beat Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending on 13 of the 15 factors compared.

Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending Company Profile

Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending Corp. is a specialty finance company focused primarily on investing in senior secured loans to private equity-owned U.S. middle market companies. It has elected to be regulated as a business development company. Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending Corp. is based in NEW YORK.