Comparing Abacus Life (NASDAQ:ABL) and ArrowMark Financial (NASDAQ:BANX)

ArrowMark Financial (NASDAQ:BANX) and Abacus Life (NASDAQ:ABL) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, valuation, dividends, risk, profitability and earnings.

Volatility and Risk

ArrowMark Financial has a beta of 0.45, indicating that its share price is 55% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Abacus Life has a beta of 0.14, indicating that its share price is 86% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares ArrowMark Financial and Abacus Life”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
ArrowMark Financial	$21.34 million	7.03	$12.63 million	N/A	N/A
Abacus Life	$102.41 million	6.11	$9.52 million	($0.18)	-41.06

ArrowMark Financial has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Abacus Life.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

24.9% of ArrowMark Financial shares are held by institutional investors. 0.5% of ArrowMark Financial shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 79.2% of Abacus Life 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.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings and price targets for ArrowMark Financial and Abacus Life, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
ArrowMark Financial	0	0	0	0	0.00
Abacus Life	0	0	5	1	3.17

Abacus Life has a consensus price target of $14.30, indicating a potential upside of 93.50%. Given Abacus Life’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Abacus Life is more favorable than ArrowMark Financial.

Profitability

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

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
ArrowMark Financial	N/A	N/A	N/A
Abacus Life	-11.65%	12.88%	6.51%

Summary

Abacus Life beats ArrowMark Financial on 8 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About ArrowMark Financial

ArrowMark Financial Corp. is a closed-end balanced mutual fund launched and managed by ArrowMark Asset Management, LLC. It invests in public equity and fixed income markets of global region. For its equity portion, the fund invests in stocks of companies operating across financials, banks sectors. It invests in growth and value stocks of companies across diversified market capitalization. For its fixed income portion, the fund invests in debt and subordinated debt, structured notes and securities, regulatory capital securities which are rated below investment grade. ArrowMark Financial Corp. was formed on February 7, 2013 and is domiciled in the United States.

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.