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

Prospect Capital Co. (NASDAQ:PSEC) announced a monthly dividend on Wednesday, February 12th,Wall Street Journal reports. Stockholders of record on Monday, April 28th will be paid a dividend of 0.045 per share by the financial services provider on Tuesday, May 20th. This represents a $0.54 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 12.41%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, April 28th.

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 114.9% meaning 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 1.4 %

Shares of PSEC opened at $4.35 on Thursday. Prospect Capital has a twelve month low of $4.09 and a twelve month high of $5.86. The company has a quick ratio of 0.48, a current ratio of 0.48 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.65. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $4.32 and its 200 day simple moving average is $4.82.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO John F. Barry purchased 837,273 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, November 18th. The stock was purchased at an average price of $4.47 per share, for a total transaction of $3,742,610.31. Following the acquisition, the chief executive officer now directly owns 73,450,112 shares in the company, valued at $328,322,000.64. The trade was a 1.15 % increase in their ownership of the stock. The acquisition was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, COO M Grier Eliasek bought 210,000 shares of Prospect Capital stock in a transaction dated 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 transaction, the chief operating officer now owns 2,131,130 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $10,250,735.30. This represents a 10.93 % increase in their position. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. In the last three months, insiders acquired 5,273,173 shares of company stock valued at $23,701,420. Company insiders own 27.10% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

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

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.