Comparing LendingTree (NASDAQ:TREE) & Chesswood Group (OTCMKTS:CHWWF)

LendingTree (NASDAQ:TREE) and Chesswood Group (OTCMKTS:CHWWF) are both finance companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, risk, valuation, profitability, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership and dividends.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares LendingTree and Chesswood Group”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
LendingTree	$1.12 billion	0.39	$151.31 million	$12.90	2.41
Chesswood Group	N/A	N/A	N/A	$0.91	N/A

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

Institutional & Insider Ownership

68.3% of LendingTree shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 12.6% of Chesswood Group shares are owned by institutional investors. 4.0% of LendingTree shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares LendingTree and Chesswood Group’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
LendingTree	14.33%	14.57%	4.49%
Chesswood Group	N/A	N/A	N/A

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings and target prices for LendingTree and Chesswood Group, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
LendingTree	0	2	5	0	2.71
Chesswood Group	0	0	0	0	0.00

LendingTree presently has a consensus target price of $61.33, suggesting a potential upside of 97.05%. Given LendingTree’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, research analysts plainly believe LendingTree is more favorable than Chesswood Group.

Summary

LendingTree beats Chesswood Group on 10 of the 11 factors compared between the two stocks.

About LendingTree

LendingTree, Inc., through its subsidiary, operates online consumer platform in the United States. It operates through three segments: Home, Consumer, and Insurance. The Home segment offers purchase mortgage, refinance mortgage, and home equity loans and lines of credit; and real estate brokerage services. The Consumer segment provides credit cards; personal, small business, student, and auto loans; deposit accounts; and other credit products, such as debt settlement services. The Insurance segment includes information, tools, and access to insurance quote products, including home, automobile, and health and Medicare through which consumers are matched with insurance lead aggregators to obtain insurance offers and policies. In addition, the company offers QuoteWizard, a marketplace for insurance comparison; ValuePenguin, a personal finance website that offers consumers objective analysis on various financial topics from insurance to credit cards; and Stash, a consumer investing and banking platform that offers a suite of personal investment accounts, traditional and Roth IRAs, custodial investment accounts, and banking services, including checking accounts and debit cards with a Stock-Back rewards program. The company was formerly known as Tree.com, Inc. and changed its name to LendingTree, Inc. in January 2015. LendingTree, Inc. was incorporated in 1996 and is based in Charlotte, North Carolina.

About Chesswood Group

Chesswood Group Limited operates primarily in the specialty finance industry in North America. The company offers micro and small-ticket commercial equipment financing and origination to small and medium-sized businesses through the third-party broker and equipment vendor channels; and commercial equipment financing and loans to small and medium-sized businesses. It also provides home improvement and other consumer financing solutions; credit alternatives to investors; consumer financing for motor vehicle purchasers; and specialized financing solutions. The company was formerly known as Chesswood Income Fund and changed its name to Chesswood Group Limited in January 2011. Chesswood Group Limited was founded in 1982 and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada.