Prospect Capital Co. (NASDAQ:PSEC) Declares Monthly Dividend of $0.05

Prospect Capital Co. (NASDAQ:PSEC) declared a monthly dividend on Monday, May 12th, Wall Street Journal reports. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, August 27th will be paid a dividend of 0.045 per share by the financial services provider on Thursday, September 18th. This represents a $0.54 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 14.71%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, August 27th.

Prospect Capital has decreased its dividend by an average of 2.1% per year over the last three years. Prospect Capital has a dividend payout ratio of 101.9% indicating that the company cannot currently cover its dividend with earnings alone and is relying on its balance sheet to cover its dividend payments.

Prospect Capital Trading Down 0.5%

NASDAQ:PSEC opened at $3.67 on Wednesday. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $3.84 and its 200 day moving average price is $4.25. Prospect Capital has a 52-week low of $3.39 and a 52-week high of $5.72. The company has a market capitalization of $1.64 billion, a PE ratio of -18.35 and a beta of 0.93. The company has a quick ratio of 0.76, a current ratio of 0.76 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.60.

Prospect Capital (NASDAQ:PSEC) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, May 8th. The financial services provider reported $0.19 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.14 by $0.05. Prospect Capital had a net margin of 1.18% and a return on equity of 12.31%. The business had revenue of $170.72 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $174.29 million.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research analysts have weighed in on PSEC shares. Wells Fargo & Company lowered their target price on Prospect Capital from $3.50 to $3.00 and set an “underweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Prospect Capital from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday, April 12th.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, Director William Gremp purchased 19,100 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, March 18th. The shares were acquired at an average price of $4.29 per share, for a total transaction of $81,939.00. Following the acquisition, the director now directly owns 75,153 shares in the company, valued at approximately $322,406.37. The trade was a 34.07% increase in their position. The acquisition was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO John F. Barry acquired 2,000,000 shares of Prospect Capital stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, March 11th. The shares were purchased at an average cost of $4.32 per share, with a total value of $8,640,000.00. Following the completion of the acquisition, the chief executive officer now owns 81,501,933 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $352,088,350.56. The trade was a 2.52% increase in their position. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have acquired 2,548,000 shares of company stock worth $10,970,715. Company insiders own 28.25% of the company’s stock.

Prospect Capital Company Profile

Prospect Capital Corporation is a business development company. It specializes in middle market, mature, mezzanine finance, later stage, emerging growth, leveraged buyouts, refinancing, acquisitions, recapitalizations, turnaround, growth capital, development, capital expenditures and subordinated debt tranches of collateralized loan obligations, cash flow term loans, market place lending and bridge transactions.