Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Fund (MSDL) to Issue Quarterly Dividend of $0.50 on July 25th

Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Fund (NYSE:MSDL) declared a quarterly dividend on Friday, May 9th, Wall Street Journal reports. Investors of record on Monday, June 30th will be given a dividend of 0.50 per share on Friday, July 25th. This represents a $2.00 annualized dividend and a yield of 10.40%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, June 30th.

Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Fund Trading Down 0.3%

Shares of NYSE:MSDL opened at $19.23 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $1.69 billion, a P/E ratio of 8.82 and a beta of 0.42. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.11, a current ratio of 1.36 and a quick ratio of 1.36. Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Fund has a 1 year low of $17.59 and a 1 year high of $23.68. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $19.42 and its 200-day moving average price is $20.10.

Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Fund (NYSE:MSDL) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, May 8th. The company reported $0.52 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.56 by ($0.04). The company had revenue of $101.50 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $102.86 million. Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Fund had a net margin of 47.65% and a return on equity of 11.80%. Sell-side analysts expect that Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Fund will post 2.56 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, Director Kevin Shannon bought 10,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, June 6th. The shares were bought at an average price of $19.43 per share, for a total transaction of $194,300.00. Following the purchase, the director now owns 5,700 shares in the company, valued at approximately $110,751. The trade was a -232.56% increase in their ownership of the stock. The purchase was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. 0.21% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Fund

An institutional investor recently raised its position in Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Fund stock. Millennium Management LLC increased its position in shares of Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Fund (NYSE:MSDL) by 682.5% during the 1st quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 198,684 shares of the company’s stock after purchasing an additional 173,292 shares during the period. Millennium Management LLC owned 0.23% of Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Fund worth $3,966,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research analysts recently weighed in on MSDL shares. Royal Bank Of Canada lowered their price objective on shares of Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Fund from $22.00 to $21.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, May 22nd. Wells Fargo & Company lowered their price target on Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Fund from $20.00 to $19.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, April 28th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods lowered their price target on Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Fund from $21.00 to $20.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, April 8th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their target price on Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Fund from $20.50 to $19.50 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, April 24th. Finally, UBS Group lowered their target price on Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Fund from $21.00 to $20.50 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, April 17th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $20.00.

Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Fund Company Profile

Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Fund is a business development company. It is a non-diversified, externally managed specialty finance company focused on lending to middle-market companies. Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Fund is based in NEW YORK.