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

Prospect Capital Co. (NASDAQ:PSEC) announced a dividend on Wednesday, February 26th, investing.com reports. Shareholders of record on Thursday, February 27th will be paid a dividend of 0.045 per share by the financial services provider on Thursday, March 20th. This represents a yield of 12.47%. 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 Trading Down 0.9 %

Shares of Prospect Capital stock opened at $4.33 on Thursday. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $4.31 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $4.76. Prospect Capital has a 12-month low of $4.09 and a 12-month high of $5.72. The company has a quick ratio of 0.76, a current ratio of 0.76 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.60. The company has a market capitalization of $1.92 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -21.65 and a beta of 0.99.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, COO M Grier Eliasek acquired 210,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 29th. The stock was bought at an average price of $4.81 per share, for a total transaction of $1,010,100.00. Following the purchase, the chief operating officer now directly owns 2,131,130 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $10,250,735.30. The trade was a 10.93 % increase in their position. The acquisition was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO John F. Barry acquired 2,000,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, December 24th. The stock was bought at an average price of $4.29 per share, with a total value of $8,580,000.00. Following the purchase, the chief executive officer now directly owns 79,477,549 shares in the company, valued at $340,958,685.21. This represents a 2.58 % increase in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. Company insiders own 27.10% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Separately, StockNews.com upgraded shares of 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.