Comparing Great Elm Capital Group (GECC) & Its Peers

Great Elm Capital Group (NASDAQ:GECC) is one of 1,744 public companies in the “Capital Markets” industry, but how does it compare to its peers? We will compare Great Elm Capital Group to similar companies based on the strength of its analyst recommendations, profitability, dividends, risk, valuation, institutional ownership and earnings.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current recommendations for Great Elm Capital Group and its peers, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Great Elm Capital Group	1	3	0	0	1.75
Great Elm Capital Group Competitors	5549	20118	22454	642	2.37

Great Elm Capital Group presently has a consensus target price of $10.00, suggesting a potential upside of 95.69%. As a group, “Capital Markets” companies have a potential upside of 21.92%. Given Great Elm Capital Group’s higher probable upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Great Elm Capital Group is more favorable than its peers.

Risk & Volatility

Great Elm Capital Group has a beta of 0.85, indicating that its share price is 15% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Great Elm Capital Group’s peers have a beta of 0.80, indicating that their average share price is 20% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Great Elm Capital Group and its peers’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Great Elm Capital Group	-49.20%	15.01%	5.61%
Great Elm Capital Group Competitors	318.34%	79.19%	3.72%

Insider & Institutional Ownership

38.8% of Great Elm Capital Group shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 30.5% of shares of all “Capital Markets” companies are held by institutional investors. 3.9% of Great Elm Capital Group shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 13.0% of shares of all “Capital Markets” companies are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Dividends

Great Elm Capital Group pays an annual dividend of $1.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 19.6%. Great Elm Capital Group pays out -68.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. As a group, “Capital Markets” companies pay a dividend yield of 3.1% and pay out 30.0% of their earnings in the form of a dividend. Great Elm Capital Group has raised its dividend for 2 consecutive years. Great Elm Capital Group is clearly a better dividend stock than its peers, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Great Elm Capital Group and its peers top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Great Elm Capital Group	-$16.53 million	-$31.79 million	-3.50
Great Elm Capital Group Competitors	$5.22 billion	$399.10 million	17.71

Great Elm Capital Group’s peers have higher revenue and earnings than Great Elm Capital Group. Great Elm Capital Group is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than its peers, indicating that it is currently more affordable than other companies in its industry.

Summary

Great Elm Capital Group peers beat Great Elm Capital Group on 9 of the 15 factors compared.

About Great Elm Capital Group

Great Elm Capital Corp. is a business development company which specializes in loan and mezzanine, middle market investments. It invests in the debt instruments of middle market companies. The fund prefers to invest in media, commercial services and supplies, healthcare, telecommunication services, communications equipment. It typically makes equity investments between $3 million and $10 million in companies with revenues between $3 million and $75 million.