Prospect Capital Co. (PSEC) to Issue Monthly Dividend of $0.05 on February 19th

Prospect Capital Co. (NASDAQ:PSEC) announced a monthly dividend on Tuesday, November 5th,Wall Street Journal reports. Investors of record on Wednesday, January 29th will be given a dividend of 0.045 per share by the financial services provider on Wednesday, February 19th. This represents a $0.54 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 12.33%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, January 29th.

Prospect Capital has decreased its dividend payment by an average of 1.4% annually 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 Stock Up 0.2 %

Prospect Capital stock opened at $4.38 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.65, a quick ratio of 0.48 and a current ratio of 0.48. Prospect Capital has a 12 month low of $4.09 and a 12 month high of $6.24. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $4.42 and its 200-day simple moving average is $4.93.

Prospect Capital (NASDAQ:PSEC) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Friday, November 8th. The financial services provider reported $0.21 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.17 by $0.04. The business had revenue of $196.31 million during the quarter. Prospect Capital had a positive return on equity of 12.19% and a negative net margin of 2.23%.

Insider Buying and Selling

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

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Separately, StockNews.com upgraded Prospect Capital from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note 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.