Ares Capital Co. to Issue Quarterly Dividend of $0.48 (NASDAQ:ARCC)

Ares Capital Co. (NASDAQ:ARCC) announced a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, October 30th,RTT News reports. Investors of record on Friday, December 13th will be given a dividend of 0.48 per share by the investment management company on Monday, December 30th. This represents a $1.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 8.70%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, December 13th.

Ares Capital has raised its dividend by an average of 6.3% per year over the last three years. Ares Capital has a payout ratio of 87.3% indicating that its dividend is currently covered by earnings, but may not be in the future if the company’s earnings tumble. Research analysts expect Ares Capital to earn $2.21 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.92 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 86.9%.

Ares Capital Stock Down 0.9 %

ARCC opened at $22.08 on Wednesday. The company has a market cap of $14.27 billion, a PE ratio of 8.49 and a beta of 1.01. Ares Capital has a twelve month low of $19.32 and a twelve month high of $22.43. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $21.58 and a 200 day moving average price of $21.11. The company has a quick ratio of 1.29, a current ratio of 1.29 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.06.

Ares Capital (NASDAQ:ARCC) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, October 30th. The investment management company reported $0.58 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.59 by ($0.01). The business had revenue of $755.00 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $770.45 million. Ares Capital had a return on equity of 12.06% and a net margin of 53.71%. Ares Capital’s quarterly revenue was up 15.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $0.59 EPS. Sell-side analysts expect that Ares Capital will post 2.36 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on ARCC. Wells Fargo & Company raised shares of Ares Capital from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $23.00 price objective for the company in a report on Monday, December 2nd. UBS Group raised shares of Ares Capital to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, August 23rd. StockNews.com upgraded Ares Capital from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, November 12th. Finally, B. Riley lifted their target price on Ares Capital from $21.00 to $22.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 31st. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, six have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $22.29.

Ares Capital Company Profile

Ares Capital Corporation is a business development company specializing in acquisition, recapitalization, mezzanine debt, restructurings, rescue financing, and leveraged buyout transactions of middle market companies. It also makes growth capital and general refinancing. It prefers to make investments in companies engaged in the basic and growth manufacturing, business services, consumer products, health care products and services, and information technology service sectors.