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

Prospect Capital Co. (NASDAQ:PSEC) declared a dividend on Thursday, February 6th, NASDAQ Dividends reports. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, February 26th will be given a dividend of 0.045 per share by the financial services provider on Thursday, March 20th. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, February 26th.

Prospect Capital has decreased its dividend by an average of 2.1% per year over the last three years. Prospect Capital has a dividend 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 Stock Performance

Shares of PSEC opened at $4.44 on Monday. Prospect Capital has a 12-month low of $4.09 and a 12-month high of $5.86. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $4.31 and its 200-day moving average is $4.77. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.97 billion, a P/E ratio of -22.20 and a beta of 0.99. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.60, a current ratio of 0.76 and a quick ratio of 0.76.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Separately, StockNews.com raised shares of Prospect Capital from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, December 6th.

Insider Activity

In other news, COO M Grier Eliasek bought 210,000 shares of Prospect Capital stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 29th. The shares were 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 owns 2,131,130 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $10,250,735.30. This trade represents a 10.93 % increase in their ownership of the stock. The purchase was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CEO John F. Barry bought 2,000,000 shares of Prospect Capital stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, December 24th. The stock was purchased at an average price of $4.29 per share, for a total transaction 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 position. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. Insiders have bought a total of 2,215,000 shares of company stock valued at $9,613,700 over the last 90 days. 27.10% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

About Prospect Capital

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.