Financial Comparison: MSCI (NYSE:MSCI) & Blackstone Secured Lending Fund (NYSE:BXSL)

Blackstone Secured Lending Fund (NYSE:BXSL) and MSCI (NYSE:MSCI) are both finance companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their valuation, earnings, dividends, analyst recommendations, risk, profitability and institutional ownership.

Profitability

This table compares Blackstone Secured Lending Fund and MSCI’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Blackstone Secured Lending Fund	21.03%	11.44%	4.88%
MSCI	40.31%	-50.69%	25.15%

Volatility and Risk

Blackstone Secured Lending Fund has a beta of 0.39, meaning that its share price is 61% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, MSCI has a beta of 1.2, meaning that its share price is 20% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

36.5% of Blackstone Secured Lending Fund shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 90.0% of MSCI shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.1% of Blackstone Secured Lending Fund shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 3.8% of MSCI shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Blackstone Secured Lending Fund and MSCI”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Blackstone Secured Lending Fund	$326.21 million	17.29	$563.46 million	$1.20	20.17
MSCI	$3.43 billion	13.31	$1.20 billion	$18.89	33.83

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

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings and target prices for Blackstone Secured Lending Fund and MSCI, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Blackstone Secured Lending Fund	1	7	4	0	2.25
MSCI	2	0	13	1	2.81

Blackstone Secured Lending Fund presently has a consensus price target of $24.83, suggesting a potential upside of 2.59%. MSCI has a consensus price target of $683.69, suggesting a potential upside of 6.99%. Given MSCI’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe MSCI is more favorable than Blackstone Secured Lending Fund.

Dividends

Blackstone Secured Lending Fund pays an annual dividend of $3.08 per share and has a dividend yield of 12.7%. MSCI pays an annual dividend of $8.20 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.3%. Blackstone Secured Lending Fund pays out 256.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. MSCI pays out 43.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. MSCI has raised its dividend for 11 consecutive years.

Summary

MSCI beats Blackstone Secured Lending Fund on 15 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Blackstone Secured Lending Fund

Blackstone Secured Lending Fund is business development company and a Delaware statutory trust formed on March 26, 2018, and structured as an externally managed, non-diversified closed-end investment Fund. On October 26, 2018, the fund elected to be regulated as a business development company (BDC) under the Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended (the 1940 Act). In addition, the Fund elected to be treated for U.S. federal income tax purposes, as a regulated investment company (RIC), as defined under Subchapter M of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended (the Code). The fund also intends to continue to comply with the requirements prescribed by the Code in order to maintain tax treatment as a RIC. The fund's investment objectives are to generate current income and, to a lesser extent, long-term capital appreciation. The Fund seeks to achieve its investment objective primarily through originated loans, equity and other securities, including syndicated loans, of private U.S. companies, specifically small and middle market companies, typically in the form of first lien senior secured and unitranche loans (including first out/last out loans), and to a lesser extent, second lien, third lien, unsecured and subordinated loans and other debt and equity securities.

About MSCI

MSCI Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides critical decision support tools and solutions for the investment community to manage investment processes worldwide. The Index segment provides indexes for use in various areas of the investment process, including indexed financial product, such as ETFs, mutual funds, annuities, futures, options, structured products, and over-the-counter derivatives; performance benchmarking; portfolio construction and rebalancing; and asset allocation, as well as licenses GICS and GICS Direct. The Analytics segment offers risk management, performance attribution and portfolio management content, application, an integrated view of risk and return service, and an analysis of market, credit, liquidity, counterparty, and climate risk across asset classes; managed services, including consolidation of client portfolio data, review and reconciliation of input data and results, and customized reporting; and HedgePlatform to measure, evaluate, and monitor the risk of hedge fund investments. The ESG and Climate segment provides products and services that help institutional investors understand how ESG impacts the long-term risk and return of their portfolio and individual security-level investments; and data, ratings, research, and tools to help investors navigate increasing regulation. The All Other Private Assets segment includes real estate and infrastructure data, benchmarks, return-analytics, climate assessments and market insights; business intelligence to real estate owners, managers, developers, and brokers; and offers investment decision support tools for private capital. The Private Capital Solutions segment offers tools to help private asset investors across mission-critical workflows, such as sourcing terms and conditions, evaluating operating performance, managing risk and other activities supporting private capital investing. MSCI Inc. was incorporated in 1998 and is headquartered in New York, New York.