Comparing Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending (NCDL) and The Competition

Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending (NYSE:NCDL) is one of 1,746 public companies in the “Capital Markets” industry, but how does it contrast to its rivals? We will compare Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending to similar companies based on the strength of its institutional ownership, dividends, analyst recommendations, earnings, valuation, profitability and risk.

Profitability

This table compares Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending and its rivals’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending	23.98%	9.40%	4.03%
Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending Competitors	314.79%	9.90%	3.46%

Insider and Institutional Ownership

30.6% of shares of all “Capital Markets” companies are held by institutional investors. 0.7% of Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 13.1% of shares of all “Capital Markets” companies are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Risk & Volatility

Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending 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’s rivals have a beta of 0.79, suggesting that their average stock price is 21% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings and target prices for Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending and its rivals, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending	1	2	2	0	2.20
Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending Competitors	5605	20209	22561	650	2.37

Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending presently has a consensus target price of $13.25, indicating a potential upside of 11.63%. As a group, “Capital Markets” companies have a potential upside of 23.24%. Given Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending’s rivals stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending has less favorable growth aspects than its rivals.

Dividends

Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending pays an annual dividend of $1.44 per share and has a dividend yield of 12.1%. Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending pays out 161.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. As a group, “Capital Markets” companies pay a dividend yield of 3.2% and pay out 29.2% of their earnings in the form of a dividend.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending and its rivals gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending	$207.86 million	$65.61 million	13.34
Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending Competitors	$3.14 billion	$397.40 million	15.80

Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending’s rivals have higher revenue and earnings than Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending. Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than its rivals, indicating that it is currently more affordable than other companies in its industry.

Summary

Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending rivals beat Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending on 13 of the 15 factors compared.

Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending Company Profile

Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending Corp. is a business development company that provides financing to privately owned middle-market businesses. Its portfolio focuses primarily on senior secured loans, including first-lien and unitranche loans, and may also include other debt and equity investments. The company invests mainly in businesses in the United States and seeks to support them through directly originated lending. Its investment manager is Churchill Asset Management, an affiliate of Nuveen. Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending began investment operations in 2021.