Great Elm Group (NASDAQ:GEG) & Carlyle Secured Lending (NASDAQ:CGBD) Head to Head Comparison

Great Elm Group (NASDAQ:GEG) and Carlyle Secured Lending (NASDAQ:CGBD) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, earnings, dividends, risk, valuation and profitability.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent recommendations and price targets for Great Elm Group and Carlyle Secured Lending, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Great Elm Group	1	0	0	0	1.00
Carlyle Secured Lending	0	5	1	0	2.17

Carlyle Secured Lending has a consensus price target of $11.33, suggesting a potential upside of 7.53%. Given Carlyle Secured Lending’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Carlyle Secured Lending is more favorable than Great Elm Group.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Great Elm Group and Carlyle Secured Lending”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Great Elm Group	$27.78 million	2.41	-$35.44 million	($1.15)	-1.87
Carlyle Secured Lending	$48.70 million	14.89	$69.97 million	$0.51	20.67

Carlyle Secured Lending has higher revenue and earnings than Great Elm Group. Great Elm Group is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Carlyle Secured Lending, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

52.8% of Great Elm Group shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 24.5% of Carlyle Secured Lending shares are owned by institutional investors. 49.7% of Great Elm Group shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.4% of Carlyle Secured Lending shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares Great Elm Group and Carlyle Secured Lending’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Great Elm Group	-127.61%	-63.44%	-27.48%
Carlyle Secured Lending	14.26%	8.85%	3.90%

Volatility & Risk

Great Elm Group has a beta of 0.56, indicating that its share price is 44% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Carlyle Secured Lending has a beta of 0.66, indicating that its share price is 34% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Carlyle Secured Lending beats Great Elm Group on 12 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Great Elm Group

Great Elm Group, Inc. operates as a asset management company. The company engages in credit, real estate, and finance businesses. It is also involved in business development related activities and offers investment management services. The company was formerly known as Great Elm Capital Group, Inc. and changed its name to Great Elm Group, Inc. in December 2020. Great Elm Group, Inc. was incorporated in 1994 and is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts.

About Carlyle Secured Lending

Carlyle Secured Lending, Inc. is business development company specializing in first lien debt, senior secured loans, second lien senior secured loan unsecured debt, mezzanine debt and investments in equities. It specializes in directly investing. It specializes in middle market. It targets healthcare and pharmaceutical, aerospace and defense, high tech industries, business services, software, beverage food and tobacco, hotel gamming and leisure, banking finance insurance and in real estate sector. The fund seeks to invest across United States of America, Luxembourg, Cayman Islands, Cyprus, and United Kingdom. It invests in companies with EBITDA between $25 million and $100 million.