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

Prospect Capital Co. (NASDAQ:PSEC) declared a monthly dividend on Wednesday, February 12th,Wall Street Journal reports. Shareholders of record on Monday, April 28th will be paid a dividend of 0.045 per share by the financial services provider on Tuesday, May 20th. This represents a $0.54 annualized dividend and a yield of 12.51%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, April 28th.

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 114.9% 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 Price Performance

Shares of Prospect Capital stock traded up $0.03 on Wednesday, reaching $4.32. The stock had a trading volume of 464,228 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,484,280. The business’s 50 day moving average is $4.33 and its two-hundred day moving average is $4.82. The company has a current ratio of 0.48, a quick ratio of 0.48 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.65. Prospect Capital has a 1 year low of $4.09 and a 1 year high of $5.86. The company has a market cap of $1.88 billion, a P/E ratio of -16.60 and a beta of 0.99.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Separately, StockNews.com upgraded shares of Prospect Capital from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, December 6th.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, COO M Grier Eliasek acquired 210,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 29th. The stock was purchased at an average cost of $4.81 per share, for a total transaction of $1,010,100.00. Following the acquisition, the chief operating officer now owns 2,131,130 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $10,250,735.30. This trade represents a 10.93 % increase in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CEO John F. Barry acquired 2,000,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, December 24th. The shares were purchased at an average cost of $4.29 per share, for a total transaction of $8,580,000.00. Following the completion of the acquisition, the chief executive officer now owns 79,477,549 shares in the company, valued at $340,958,685.21. This represents a 2.58 % increase in their position. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. Insiders have acquired 5,273,173 shares of company stock worth $23,701,420 in the last ninety days. 27.10% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

About Prospect Capital

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.