Analyzing Goldman Sachs BDC (NYSE:GSBD) & XP (NASDAQ:XP)

Goldman Sachs BDC (NYSE:GSBD) and XP (NASDAQ:XP) are both finance companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, valuation, dividends, profitability, earnings, institutional ownership and risk.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Goldman Sachs BDC and XP”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Goldman Sachs BDC	$365.57 million	2.64	$119.27 million	$0.52	16.47
XP	$3.30 billion	2.56	$925.91 million	$1.91	8.22

XP has higher revenue and earnings than Goldman Sachs BDC. XP is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Goldman Sachs BDC, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

28.7% of Goldman Sachs BDC shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 59.2% of XP shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.1% of Goldman Sachs BDC shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and recommmendations for Goldman Sachs BDC and XP, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Goldman Sachs BDC	3	3	0	1	1.86
XP	0	2	5	0	2.71

Goldman Sachs BDC presently has a consensus price target of $8.75, indicating a potential upside of 2.16%. XP has a consensus price target of $28.80, indicating a potential upside of 83.44%. Given XP’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe XP is more favorable than Goldman Sachs BDC.

Dividends

Goldman Sachs BDC pays an annual dividend of $1.28 per share and has a dividend yield of 14.9%. XP pays an annual dividend of $0.40 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.5%. Goldman Sachs BDC pays out 246.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. XP pays out 20.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend.

Profitability

This table compares Goldman Sachs BDC and XP’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Goldman Sachs BDC	17.19%	11.04%	4.62%
XP	27.20%	22.19%	1.33%

Risk and Volatility

Goldman Sachs BDC has a beta of 0.61, meaning that its share price is 39% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, XP has a beta of 1.01, meaning that its share price is 1% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

XP beats Goldman Sachs BDC on 11 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Goldman Sachs BDC

Goldman Sachs BDC, Inc. is a business development company specializing in middle market and mezzanine investment in private companies. It seeks to make capital appreciation through direct originations of secured debt, senior secured debt, junior secured debt, including first lien, first lien/last-out unitranche and second lien debt, unsecured debt, including mezzanine debt and, to a lesser extent, investments in equities. The fund primarily invests in United States. It seeks to invest between $10 million and $75 million in companies with EBITDA between $5 million and $75 million annually.

About XP

XP Inc. provides financial products and services in Brazil. It offers securities brokerage, private pension plans, commercial, and investment banking products, such as loan operations and transactions in the foreign exchange markets and deposits; product structuring and capital markets services for corporate clients and issuers of fixed income products; advisory services for mass-affluent and institutional clients; and wealth management services for high-net-worth customers and institutional clients. The company also offers XP Educação, an online financial education portal that offers seminars, classes, and learning tools to help teach individuals on topics, such as basics of investing, techniques, and investment strategies, as well as insurance brokerage services. In addition, it operates XP Platform, an open product platform that provides clients to access investment products in the market, including equity and fixed income securities, mutual and hedge funds, structured products, life insurance, pension plans, real-estate investment funds, and others. The company was founded in 2001 and is based in São Paulo, Brazil.