Nuveen Select Maturities Municipal Fund (NYSE:NIM) and MidCap Financial Investment (NASDAQ:MFIC) Critical Survey

Nuveen Select Maturities Municipal Fund (NYSE:NIM) and MidCap Financial Investment (NASDAQ:MFIC) are both finance companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, valuation, risk, earnings, profitability, institutional ownership and analyst recommendations.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings for Nuveen Select Maturities Municipal Fund and MidCap Financial Investment, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Nuveen Select Maturities Municipal Fund	0	0	0	0	0.00
MidCap Financial Investment	0	3	4	0	2.57

MidCap Financial Investment has a consensus target price of $14.71, suggesting a potential upside of 5.18%. Given MidCap Financial Investment’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe MidCap Financial Investment is more favorable than Nuveen Select Maturities Municipal Fund.

Profitability

This table compares Nuveen Select Maturities Municipal Fund and MidCap Financial Investment’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Nuveen Select Maturities Municipal Fund	N/A	N/A	N/A
MidCap Financial Investment	37.05%	11.37%	4.70%

Institutional and Insider Ownership

32.2% of Nuveen Select Maturities Municipal Fund shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 28.5% of MidCap Financial Investment shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.1% of MidCap Financial Investment shares are owned 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.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Nuveen Select Maturities Municipal Fund and MidCap Financial Investment”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Nuveen Select Maturities Municipal Fund	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
MidCap Financial Investment	$121.29 million	10.82	$118.76 million	$1.56	8.97

MidCap Financial Investment has higher revenue and earnings than Nuveen Select Maturities Municipal Fund.

Dividends

Nuveen Select Maturities Municipal Fund pays an annual dividend of $0.32 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.6%. MidCap Financial Investment pays an annual dividend of $1.52 per share and has a dividend yield of 10.9%. MidCap Financial Investment pays out 97.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future.

Risk and Volatility

Nuveen Select Maturities Municipal Fund has a beta of 0.26, meaning that its share price is 74% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, MidCap Financial Investment has a beta of 1.5, meaning that its share price is 50% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

MidCap Financial Investment beats Nuveen Select Maturities Municipal Fund on 10 of the 12 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Nuveen Select Maturities Municipal Fund

Nuveen Select Maturities Municipal Fund is a closed-ended fixed income mutual fund launched by Nuveen Investments, Inc. The fund is co-managed by Nuveen Fund Advisors LLC and Nuveen Asset Management, LLC. It invests in the fixed income markets of the United States. The fund invests primarily in municipal securities rated Baa/BBB or better. It invests in securities that provide income exempt from federal income tax. The fund employs fundamental analysis with bottom-up stock picking approach to create its portfolio. It benchmarks the performance of its portfolio against the S&P Intermediate Municipal Bond Index and the S&P National Municipal Bond Index. Nuveen Select Maturities Municipal Fund was formed on September 18, 1992 and is domiciled in the United States.

About MidCap Financial Investment

MidCap Financial Investment Corporation (Former name Apollo Investment Corporation) is business development company and a closed-end, externally managed, non-diversified management investment company. It is elected to be treated as a business development company (BDC) under the Investment Company Act of 1940 (the 1940 Act) specializing in private equity investments in leveraged buyouts, acquisitions, recapitalizations, growth capital, refinancing and private middle market companies. It provides direct equity capital, mezzanine, first lien secured loans, stretch senior loans, unitranche loans, second lien secured loans and senior secured loans, unsecured debt, and subordinated debt and loans. It also seeks to invest in PIPES transactions. The fund may also invest in securities of public companies that are thinly traded and may acquire investments in the secondary market and structured products. It prefers to invest in preferred equity, common equity / interests and warrants and makes equity co-investments. It may invest in cash equivalents, U.S. government securities, high-quality debt investments that mature in one year or less, high-yield bonds, distressed debt, non-U.S. investments, or securities of public companies that are not thinly traded. It also focuses on other investments such as collateralized loan obligations (CLOs) and credit-linked notes (CLNs). The fund typically invests in construction and building materials, business services, plastics & rubber, advertising, capital equipment, education, cable television, chemicals, consumer products/goods durable and non-durable and customer services, direct marketing, energy oil & gas, electricity and utilities. The fund also invest in aerospace & defense, wholesale, telecommunications, financial services, hotel, gaming, leisure, restaurants; environmental industries, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, high tech industries, beverages, food and tobacco, manufacturing, media diversified & production, printing and publishing, retail, automation, aviation and consumer transport, transportation, cargo and distribution. It primarily invests in United States. It primarily invests between $20 million and $250 million in its portfolio companies and EBITDA with less than $75 million. The fund seeks to make investments with stated maturities of five to 10 years.