Head-To-Head Comparison: BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) vs. Carlyle Group (NASDAQ:CG)

BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) and Carlyle Group (NASDAQ:CG) are both large-cap finance companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their valuation, institutional ownership, dividends, analyst recommendations, profitability, risk and earnings.

Dividends

BlackRock pays an annual dividend of $20.84 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.9%. Carlyle Group pays an annual dividend of $1.40 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.4%. BlackRock pays out 50.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Carlyle Group pays out 47.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. BlackRock has raised its dividend for 16 consecutive years and Carlyle Group has raised its dividend for 4 consecutive years. Carlyle Group is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

80.7% of BlackRock shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 55.9% of Carlyle Group shares are owned by institutional investors. 2.0% of BlackRock shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 26.3% of Carlyle Group shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares BlackRock and Carlyle Group”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
BlackRock	$20.96 billion	8.21	$6.37 billion	$41.16	27.00
Carlyle Group	$3.47 billion	6.14	$1.02 billion	$2.95	19.99

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

Profitability

This table compares BlackRock and Carlyle Group’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
BlackRock	30.09%	15.57%	5.13%
Carlyle Group	19.00%	23.78%	6.40%

Risk & Volatility

BlackRock has a beta of 1.41, indicating that its share price is 41% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Carlyle Group has a beta of 1.86, indicating that its share price is 86% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings and target prices for BlackRock and Carlyle Group, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
BlackRock	0	2	12	0	2.86
Carlyle Group	1	7	8	0	2.44

BlackRock presently has a consensus target price of $1,132.29, suggesting a potential upside of 1.90%. Carlyle Group has a consensus target price of $57.73, suggesting a potential downside of 2.10%. Given BlackRock’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, research analysts clearly believe BlackRock is more favorable than Carlyle Group.

Summary

BlackRock beats Carlyle Group on 11 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About BlackRock

BlackRock, Inc. is a publicly owned investment manager. The firm primarily provides its services to institutional, intermediary, and individual investors including corporate, public, union, and industry pension plans, insurance companies, third-party mutual funds, endowments, public institutions, governments, foundations, charities, sovereign wealth funds, corporations, official institutions, and banks. It also provides global risk management and advisory services. The firm manages separate client-focused equity, fixed income, and balanced portfolios. It also launches and manages open-end and closed-end mutual funds, offshore funds, unit trusts, and alternative investment vehicles including structured funds. The firm launches equity, fixed income, balanced, and real estate mutual funds. It also launches equity, fixed income, balanced, currency, commodity, and multi-asset exchange traded funds. The firm also launches and manages hedge funds. It invests in the public equity, fixed income, real estate, currency, commodity, and alternative markets across the globe. The firm primarily invests in growth and value stocks of small-cap, mid-cap, SMID-cap, large-cap, and multi-cap companies. It also invests in dividend-paying equity securities. The firm invests in investment grade municipal securities, government securities including securities issued or guaranteed by a government or a government agency or instrumentality, corporate bonds, and asset-backed and mortgage-backed securities. It employs fundamental and quantitative analysis with a focus on bottom-up and top-down approach to make its investments. The firm employs liquidity, asset allocation, balanced, real estate, and alternative strategies to make its investments. In real estate sector, it seeks to invest in Poland and Germany. The firm benchmarks the performance of its portfolios against various S&P, Russell, Barclays, MSCI, Citigroup, and Merrill Lynch indices. BlackRock, Inc. was founded in 1988 and is based in New York City with additional offices in Boston, Massachusetts; London, United Kingdom; Gurgaon, India; Hong Kong; Greenwich, Connecticut; Princeton, New Jersey; Edinburgh, United Kingdom; Sydney, Australia; Taipei, Taiwan; Singapore; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Washington, District of Columbia; Toronto, Canada; Wilmington, Delaware; and San Francisco, California.

About Carlyle Group

The Carlyle Group Inc. is an investment firm specializing in direct and fund of fund investments. Within direct investments, it specializes in management-led/ Leveraged buyouts, privatizations, divestitures, strategic minority equity investments, structured credit, global distressed and corporate opportunities, small and middle market, equity private placements, consolidations and buildups, senior debt, mezzanine and leveraged finance, and venture and growth capital financings, seed/startup, early venture, emerging growth, turnaround, mid venture, late venture, PIPES. The firm invests across four segments which include Corporate Private Equity, Real Assets, Global Market Strategies, and Solutions. The firm typically invests in industrial, agribusiness, ecological sector, fintech, airports, parking, Plastics, Rubber, diversified natural resources, minerals, farming, aerospace, defense, automotive, consumer, retail, industrial, infrastructure, energy, power, healthcare, software, software enabled services, semiconductors, communications infrastructure, financial technology, utilities, gaming, systems and related supply chain, electronic systems, systems, oil and gas, processing facilities, power generation assets, technology, systems, real estate, financial services, transportation, business services, telecommunications, media, and logistics sectors. Within the industrial sector, the firm invests in manufacturing, building products, packaging, chemicals, metals and mining, forestry and paper products, and industrial consumables and services. In consumer and retail sectors, it invests in food and beverage, retail, restaurants, consumer products, domestic consumption, consumer services, personal care products, direct marketing, and education. Within aerospace, defense, business services, and government services sectors, it seeks to invest in defense electronics, manufacturing and services, government contracting and services, information technology, distribution companies. In telecommunication and media sectors, it invests in cable TV, directories, publishing, entertainment and content delivery services, wireless infrastructure/services, fixed line networks, satellite services, broadband and Internet, and infrastructure. Within real estate, the firm invests in office, hotel, industrial, retail, for sale residential, student housing, hospitality, multifamily residential, homebuilding and building products, and senior living sectors. The firm seeks to make investments in growing business including those with overleveraged balance sheets. The firm seeks to hold its investments for four to six years. In the healthcare sector, it invests in healthcare services, outsourcing services, companies running clinical trials for pharmaceutical companies, managed care, pharmaceuticals, pharmaceutical related services, healthcare IT, medical, products, and devices. It seeks to invest in companies based in Sub-Saharan focusing on Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Botswana, Nigeria, Uganda, West Africa, North Africa and South Africa focusing on Tanzania and Zambia; Asia focusing on Pakistan, India, South East Asia, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Korea, and Japan; Australia; New Zealand; Europe focusing on France, Italy, Denmark, United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Benelux , Sweden, Switzerland, Hungary, Poland, and Russia; Middle East focusing on Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and UAE; North America focusing on United States which further invest in Southeastern United States, Texas, Boston, San Francisco Bay Area and Pacific Northwest; Asia Pacific; Soviet Union, Central-Eastern Europe, and Israel; Nordic region; and South America focusing on Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Peru. The firm seeks to invest in food, financial, and healthcare industries in Western China. In the real estate sector, the firm seeks to invest in various locations across Europe focusing on France and Central Europe, United States, Asia focusing on China, and Latin America. It typically invests between $1 million and $50 million for venture investments and between $50 million and $2 billion for buyouts in companies with enterprise value of between $31.57 million and $1000 million and sales value of $10 million and $500 million. It seeks to invest in companies with market capitalization greater than $50 million and EBITDA between $5 million to $25 million. It prefers to take a majority or a minority stake. While investing in Japan, it does not invest in companies with more than 1,000 employees and prefers companies' worth between $100 million and $150 million. The firm originates, structures, and acts as lead equity investor in the transactions. The Carlyle Group Inc. was founded in 1987 and is based in Washington, District of Columbia with additional offices in 21 countries across 5 continents (North America, South America, Asia, Australia and Europe).