BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) vs. Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending (NYSE:NCDL) Head-To-Head Comparison

Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending (NYSE:NCDL) and BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) are both finance companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, institutional ownership, dividends, risk, earnings, analyst recommendations and valuation.

Profitability

This table compares Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending and BlackRock’s 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%
BlackRock	24.22%	16.08%	5.32%

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending and BlackRock”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending	$207.86 million	2.46	$65.61 million	$0.95	10.92
BlackRock	$28.54 billion	6.23	$5.55 billion	$43.98	26.11

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

Institutional and Insider Ownership

80.7% of BlackRock shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.7% of Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.9% of BlackRock shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Dividends

Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending pays an annual dividend of $1.44 per share and has a dividend yield of 13.9%. BlackRock pays an annual dividend of $22.92 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.0%. Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending pays out 151.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. BlackRock pays out 52.1% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. BlackRock has increased its dividend for 16 consecutive years.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings for Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending and BlackRock, 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
BlackRock	0	2	15	1	2.94

Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending currently has a consensus price target of $13.62, indicating a potential upside of 31.39%. BlackRock has a consensus price target of $1,337.19, indicating a potential upside of 16.46%. Given Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending’s higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending is more favorable than BlackRock.

Volatility and Risk

Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending has a beta of 0.55, suggesting that its share price is 45% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, BlackRock has a beta of 1.41, suggesting that its share price is 41% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

BlackRock beats Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending on 15 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks.

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.

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.