BlackRock (NYSE:BLK – Get Free Report) and Great Elm Capital Group (NASDAQ:GECC – Get Free Report) are both finance companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their valuation, institutional ownership, profitability, earnings, dividends, risk and analyst recommendations.
Insider & Institutional Ownership
80.7% of BlackRock shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 38.8% of Great Elm Capital Group shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.9% of BlackRock shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 3.9% of Great Elm Capital Group shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.
Analyst Recommendations
This is a breakdown of recent recommendations and price targets for BlackRock and Great Elm Capital Group, as reported by MarketBeat.
| Sell Ratings | Hold Ratings | Buy Ratings | Strong Buy Ratings | Rating Score | |
| BlackRock | 0 | 4 | 15 | 1 | 2.85 |
| Great Elm Capital Group | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1.75 |
Volatility and Risk
BlackRock has a beta of 1.44, indicating that its share price is 44% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Great Elm Capital Group has a beta of 0.72, indicating that its share price is 28% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Dividends
BlackRock pays an annual dividend of $22.92 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.1%. Great Elm Capital Group pays an annual dividend of $1.20 per share and has a dividend yield of 21.2%. BlackRock pays out 57.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Great Elm Capital Group pays out -52.2% 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 increased its dividend for 16 consecutive years and Great Elm Capital Group has increased its dividend for 2 consecutive years. Great Elm Capital Group is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.
Earnings & Valuation
This table compares BlackRock and Great Elm Capital Group”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.
| Gross Revenue | Price/Sales Ratio | Net Income | Earnings Per Share | Price/Earnings Ratio | |
| BlackRock | $24.22 billion | 6.91 | $5.55 billion | $39.84 | 26.99 |
| Great Elm Capital Group | $49.99 million | 1.58 | -$31.79 million | ($2.30) | -2.47 |
BlackRock has higher revenue and earnings than Great Elm Capital Group. Great Elm Capital 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 Great Elm Capital Group’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.
| Net Margins | Return on Equity | Return on Assets | |
| BlackRock | 24.40% | 14.96% | 5.03% |
| Great Elm Capital Group | -70.13% | 13.53% | 4.54% |
Summary
BlackRock beats Great Elm Capital Group on 14 of the 18 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 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.
Receive News & Ratings for BlackRock Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for BlackRock and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter.
