Head to Head Analysis: Barings BDC (NYSE:BBDC) and Abacus Life (NASDAQ:ABL)

Abacus Life (NASDAQ:ABL) and Barings BDC (NYSE:BBDC) 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.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for Abacus Life and Barings BDC, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Abacus Life	0	0	0	0	N/A
Barings BDC	0	1	1	0	2.50

Barings BDC has a consensus target price of $9.13, suggesting a potential downside of 1.14%. Given Barings BDC’s higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Barings BDC is more favorable than Abacus Life.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Abacus Life and Barings BDC’s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Abacus Life	$79.59 million	9.61	$9.52 million	N/A	N/A
Barings BDC	$139.67 million	7.02	$128.00 million	$1.19	7.77

Barings BDC has higher revenue and earnings than Abacus Life.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

44.1% of Barings BDC shares are held by institutional investors. 47.0% of Abacus Life shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.5% of Barings BDC 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.

Volatility and Risk

Abacus Life has a beta of 0.18, suggesting that its share price is 82% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Barings BDC has a beta of 0.63, suggesting that its share price is 37% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Abacus Life and Barings BDC’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Abacus Life	N/A	1.09%	0.55%
Barings BDC	44.26%	10.63%	4.70%

Summary

Barings BDC beats Abacus Life on 9 of the 11 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Abacus Life

Abacus Life, Inc. operates as an alternative asset manager specializing in life insurance products. It purchases life insurance policies from consumers seeking liquidity and manages policies over time via trading, holding, and/or servicing. The company was founded in 2004 and is based in Orlando, Florida.

About Barings BDC

Barings BDC, Inc. is a publicly traded, externally managed investment company that has elected to be treated as a business development company under the Investment Company Act of 1940. It seeks to invest primarily in senior secured loans, first lien debt, unitranche, second lien debt, subordinated debt, equity co-investments and senior secured private debt investments in private middle-market companies that operate across a wide range of industries. It specializes in mezzanine, leveraged buyouts, management buyouts, ESOPs, change of control transactions, acquisition financings, growth financing, and recapitalizations in lower middle market, mature, and later stage companies. It invests in manufacturing and distribution; business services and technology; transportation and logistics; consumer product and services. It invests in United States. It invests in companies with EBITDA of $10 million to $75 million, typically in private equity sponsor backed.