Head-To-Head Contrast: Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending (NYSE:NCDL) and Guild (NYSE:GHLD)

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

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Guild and Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending’s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Guild	$655.19 million	1.27	-$39.01 million	($0.65)	-20.97
Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending	$161.76 million	5.92	$75.94 million	N/A	N/A

Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Guild.

Profitability

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

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Guild	-5.95%	3.57%	1.27%
Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending	46.95%	11.91%	4.89%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for Guild and Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Guild	1	1	2	0	2.25
Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending	0	3	3	0	2.50

Guild presently has a consensus target price of $15.25, suggesting a potential upside of 11.89%. Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending has a consensus target price of $18.50, suggesting a potential upside of 5.84%. Given Guild’s higher possible upside, research analysts plainly believe Guild is more favorable than Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

17.5% of Guild shares are held by institutional investors. 78.0% of Guild shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending beats Guild on 7 of the 11 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Guild

Guild Holdings Company originates, sells, and services residential mortgage loans in the United States. It operates in two segments, Origination and Servicing. The company offers residential mortgages through retail and correspondent channels. Guild Holdings Company was incorporated in 1960 and is headquartered in San Diego, California.

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.