Van ECK Associates Corp Raises Stock Holdings in Ares Capital Co. (NASDAQ:ARCC)

Van ECK Associates Corp grew its stake in shares of Ares Capital Co. (NASDAQ:ARCC) by 11.3% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 8,282,079 shares of the investment management company’s stock after buying an additional 840,823 shares during the period. Van ECK Associates Corp’s holdings in Ares Capital were worth $165,890,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in ARCC. International Assets Investment Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Ares Capital by 1,865.8% in the fourth quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 4,214,991 shares of the investment management company’s stock worth $844,260,000 after purchasing an additional 4,000,570 shares during the period. Melia Wealth LLC bought a new position in shares of Ares Capital in the fourth quarter worth about $13,992,000. Tudor Investment Corp Et Al purchased a new stake in shares of Ares Capital during the third quarter worth about $11,952,000. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. boosted its stake in Ares Capital by 484.3% in the 3rd quarter. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. now owns 699,265 shares of the investment management company’s stock worth $13,615,000 after purchasing an additional 579,582 shares during the period. Finally, Allen Investment Management LLC grew its holdings in Ares Capital by 102.2% during the 3rd quarter. Allen Investment Management LLC now owns 1,054,687 shares of the investment management company’s stock valued at $20,535,000 after buying an additional 532,958 shares in the last quarter. 27.38% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

ARCC has been the topic of several research analyst reports. JMP Securities reissued a “market outperform” rating and issued a $21.00 target price on shares of Ares Capital in a report on Tuesday, March 26th. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price objective on Ares Capital from $19.00 to $20.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Monday, January 29th. Finally, B. Riley downgraded Ares Capital from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $21.00 target price on the stock. in a research report on Monday, January 8th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Ares Capital has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $20.80.

Ares Capital Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ ARCC traded down $0.14 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, hitting $20.67. 803,097 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 3,503,183. The company has a market capitalization of $12.54 billion, a P/E ratio of 7.79 and a beta of 1.00. Ares Capital Co. has a 1 year low of $17.53 and a 1 year high of $20.94. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.06, a current ratio of 1.24 and a quick ratio of 1.24. The company’s 50-day moving average is $20.37 and its two-hundred day moving average is $20.04.

Ares Capital (NASDAQ:ARCC) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 7th. The investment management company reported $0.63 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.60 by $0.03. The business had revenue of $707.00 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $669.78 million. Ares Capital had a return on equity of 12.50% and a net margin of 58.22%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 10.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $0.68 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Ares Capital Co. will post 2.35 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Ares Capital Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 29th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 15th were given a dividend of $0.48 per share. This represents a $1.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 9.29%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, March 14th. Ares Capital’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 71.91%.

About Ares Capital

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.