Morgan Stanley Direct Lending (NYSE:MSDL) Receives Consensus Recommendation of “Hold” from Analysts

Morgan Stanley Direct Lending (NYSE:MSDL) has been given an average rating of “Hold” by the six research firms that are currently covering the firm, Marketbeat.com reports. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and one has issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average twelve-month price objective among analysts that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $21.42.

MSDL has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. Royal Bank of Canada restated an “outperform” rating and set a $22.00 price objective on shares of Morgan Stanley Direct Lending in a research note on Friday, September 13th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their price target on shares of Morgan Stanley Direct Lending from $22.00 to $20.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, July 29th. UBS Group cut shares of Morgan Stanley Direct Lending from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $23.50 price objective for the company. in a report on Thursday, July 18th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company cut their target price on Morgan Stanley Direct Lending from $21.00 to $20.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, July 26th.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Morgan Stanley Direct Lending

Institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Cliffwater LLC acquired a new position in shares of Morgan Stanley Direct Lending during the 1st quarter worth $47,035,000. Van ECK Associates Corp acquired a new stake in shares of Morgan Stanley Direct Lending in the first quarter worth about $32,973,000. Capstone Investment Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Morgan Stanley Direct Lending in the first quarter worth about $646,000. Everpar Advisors LLC acquired a new position in shares of Morgan Stanley Direct Lending during the 3rd quarter valued at about $377,000. Finally, Kingswood Wealth Advisors LLC raised its stake in shares of Morgan Stanley Direct Lending by 64.8% in the 2nd quarter. Kingswood Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 30,713 shares of the company’s stock valued at $671,000 after acquiring an additional 12,076 shares in the last quarter.

Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE MSDL opened at $19.92 on Wednesday. Morgan Stanley Direct Lending has a 52-week low of $19.05 and a 52-week high of $24.18. The company has a quick ratio of 1.09, a current ratio of 1.09 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.89. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $20.03 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $20.69. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.78 billion and a P/E ratio of 6.43.

Morgan Stanley Direct Lending (NYSE:MSDL) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, August 8th. The company reported $0.63 EPS for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $0.63. Morgan Stanley Direct Lending had a return on equity of 12.57% and a net margin of 60.60%. The firm had revenue of $104.19 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $101.60 million. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Morgan Stanley Direct Lending will post 2.54 earnings per share for the current year.

Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Cuts Dividend

The firm also recently announced a — dividend, which will be paid on Friday, January 24th. Shareholders of record on Monday, November 4th will be paid a dividend of $0.10 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, November 4th. This represents a yield of 10.1%. Morgan Stanley Direct Lending’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 64.52%.

Morgan Stanley Direct Lending 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.