Contrasting Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending (NYSE:NCDL) & Crescent Capital BDC (NASDAQ:CCAP)

Crescent Capital BDC (NASDAQ:CCAP) and Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending (NYSE:NCDL) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, risk, valuation, profitability and dividends.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent recommendations and price targets for Crescent Capital BDC and Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Crescent Capital BDC	1	1	3	1	2.67
Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending	0	4	1	0	2.20

Crescent Capital BDC presently has a consensus target price of $16.38, indicating a potential upside of 13.72%. Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending has a consensus target price of $15.75, indicating a potential upside of 16.32%. Given Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending’s higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending is more favorable than Crescent Capital BDC.

Dividends

Crescent Capital BDC pays an annual dividend of $1.68 per share and has a dividend yield of 11.7%. Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending pays an annual dividend of $1.80 per share and has a dividend yield of 13.3%. Crescent Capital BDC pays out 171.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending pays out 117.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Crescent Capital BDC has raised its dividend for 1 consecutive years. Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Risk and Volatility

Crescent Capital BDC has a beta of 0.55, suggesting that its stock price is 45% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending has a beta of 0.4, suggesting that its stock price is 60% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Crescent Capital BDC and Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Crescent Capital BDC	20.84%	9.76%	4.30%
Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending	36.83%	11.13%	4.83%

Insider & Institutional Ownership

49.5% of Crescent Capital BDC shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.1% of Crescent Capital BDC shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 0.6% of Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Crescent Capital BDC and Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Crescent Capital BDC	$197.36 million	2.70	$73.65 million	$0.98	14.69
Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending	$224.04 million	2.98	$116.32 million	$1.53	8.85

Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending has higher revenue and earnings than Crescent Capital BDC. Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Crescent Capital BDC, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending beats Crescent Capital BDC on 10 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Crescent Capital BDC

Crescent Capital BDC, Inc. is as a business development company private equity / buyouts and loan fund. It specializes in directly investing. It specializes in middle market. The fund seeks to invest in United States.

About Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending

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.