Whipplewood Advisors LLC Raises Stock Holdings in Ares Capital Corporation $ARCC

Whipplewood Advisors LLC raised its stake in Ares Capital Corporation (NASDAQ:ARCC) by 1,036,600.0% in the 2nd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 41,468 shares of the investment management company’s stock after acquiring an additional 41,464 shares during the period. Whipplewood Advisors LLC’s holdings in Ares Capital were worth $911,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other large investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in ARCC. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Ares Capital during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $877,203,000. HighTower Advisors LLC raised its holdings in shares of Ares Capital by 87.2% during the first quarter. HighTower Advisors LLC now owns 2,621,109 shares of the investment management company’s stock valued at $58,084,000 after buying an additional 1,220,570 shares during the last quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC bought a new stake in shares of Ares Capital during the first quarter valued at approximately $14,766,000. CCLA Investment Management raised its holdings in shares of Ares Capital by 26.5% during the first quarter. CCLA Investment Management now owns 2,799,023 shares of the investment management company’s stock valued at $62,026,000 after buying an additional 587,068 shares during the last quarter. Finally, SCS Capital Management LLC bought a new stake in Ares Capital during the first quarter worth approximately $11,778,000. 27.38% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages recently commented on ARCC. Weiss Ratings reissued a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Ares Capital in a report on Wednesday, October 8th. B. Riley raised Ares Capital from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $22.50 to $23.50 in a report on Wednesday, July 30th. Wall Street Zen raised Ares Capital from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Sunday, October 19th. 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 report on Wednesday, July 30th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their target price on Ares Capital from $23.00 to $22.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, October 1st. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and two have issued a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Ares Capital presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $22.63.

Ares Capital Price Performance

ARCC opened at $20.08 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $14.16 billion, a P/E ratio of 9.80 and a beta of 0.68. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $21.07 and a 200-day moving average of $21.54. 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 Corporation has a 12-month low of $18.26 and a 12-month high of $23.84.

Ares Capital (NASDAQ:ARCC) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, July 29th. The investment management company reported $0.50 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.51 by ($0.01). The business had revenue of $614.00 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $748.76 million. Ares Capital had a return on equity of 10.48% and a net margin of 44.94%.During the same period last year, the business earned $0.61 EPS. Equities analysts forecast that Ares Capital Corporation will post 2.19 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Ares Capital Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, September 30th. Stockholders of record on Monday, September 15th were given a $0.48 dividend. This represents a $1.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 9.6%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, September 15th. Ares Capital’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 93.66%.

Ares Capital Profile

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.