Ares Capital Corporation $ARCC Stock Position Increased by Advisors Capital Management LLC

Advisors Capital Management LLC lifted its position in Ares Capital Corporation (NASDAQ:ARCC) by 3.0% during the first quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 3,627,990 shares of the investment management company’s stock after buying an additional 104,339 shares during the period. Ares Capital makes up 1.2% of Advisors Capital Management LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 14th largest position. Advisors Capital Management LLC’s holdings in Ares Capital were worth $80,396,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC raised its stake in shares of Ares Capital by 0.7% in the 1st quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC now owns 241,119 shares of the investment management company’s stock worth $5,343,000 after buying an additional 1,776 shares in the last quarter. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. raised its position in shares of Ares Capital by 18.2% during the first quarter. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. now owns 47,840 shares of the investment management company’s stock worth $1,058,000 after purchasing an additional 7,381 shares during the period. Bessemer Group Inc. raised its position in shares of Ares Capital by 23,571.4% during the first quarter. Bessemer Group Inc. now owns 3,314 shares of the investment management company’s stock worth $73,000 after purchasing an additional 3,300 shares during the period. GAMMA Investing LLC raised its position in shares of Ares Capital by 2,116.0% during the first quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 13,274 shares of the investment management company’s stock worth $2,940,000 after purchasing an additional 12,675 shares during the period. Finally, SG Americas Securities LLC raised its position in shares of Ares Capital by 2.8% during the first quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 24,361 shares of the investment management company’s stock worth $540,000 after purchasing an additional 666 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 27.38% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on ARCC shares. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their target price on Ares Capital from $22.00 to $23.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 30th. UBS Group upped their price target on shares of Ares Capital from $22.00 to $22.50 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 16th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods lifted their price objective on shares of Ares Capital from $22.00 to $23.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 30th. Wall Street Zen raised shares of Ares Capital from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, August 16th. Finally, B. Riley raised Ares Capital from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their target price for the stock from $22.50 to $23.50 in a research report on Wednesday, July 30th. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and two have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $22.86.

Ares Capital Stock Up 0.5%

ARCC stock opened at $22.35 on Thursday. The company has a 50 day moving average of $22.55 and a two-hundred day moving average of $21.89. The company has a market cap of $15.77 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 10.90 and a beta of 0.70. Ares Capital Corporation has a 12-month low of $18.26 and a 12-month high of $23.84. The company has a quick ratio of 1.14, a current ratio of 1.14 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.01.

Ares Capital (NASDAQ:ARCC) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, July 29th. The investment management company reported $0.50 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.51 by ($0.01). The firm had revenue of $614.00 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $748.76 million. Ares Capital had a return on equity of 10.48% and a net margin of 44.94%.During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $0.61 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Ares Capital Corporation will post 2.19 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Ares Capital Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, September 30th. Stockholders of record on Monday, September 15th will be paid a dividend of $0.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, September 15th. This represents a $1.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 8.6%. Ares Capital’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 93.66%.

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.