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

Prospect Capital Co. (NASDAQ:PSEC) declared a dividend on Thursday, February 6th, NASDAQ Dividends reports. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, February 26th will be given a dividend of 0.045 per share by the financial services provider on Thursday, March 20th. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, February 26th.

Prospect Capital has decreased its dividend payment by an average of 2.1% per year over the last three years. Prospect Capital has a 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 Stock Performance

NASDAQ:PSEC opened at $4.44 on Monday. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.97 billion, a P/E ratio of -22.20 and a beta of 0.99. Prospect Capital has a twelve month low of $4.09 and a twelve month high of $5.86. The company has a fifty day moving average of $4.31 and a 200-day moving average of $4.77. The company has a quick ratio of 0.76, a current ratio of 0.76 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.60.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, COO M Grier Eliasek bought 210,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 29th. The shares were bought at an average cost of $4.81 per share, with a total value of $1,010,100.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer now directly 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 acquisition was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO John F. Barry purchased 2,000,000 shares of Prospect Capital stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, December 24th. The stock was acquired at an average cost of $4.29 per share, with a total value of $8,580,000.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 79,477,549 shares in the company, valued at $340,958,685.21. This trade represents a 2.58 % increase in their position. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have bought 2,215,000 shares of company stock worth $9,613,700. Corporate insiders own 27.10% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

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

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.