Morgan Stanley Direct Lending (NYSE:MSDL) Announces $0.50 Quarterly Dividend

Morgan Stanley Direct Lending (NYSE:MSDL) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, February 27th, Wall Street Journal reports. Shareholders of record on Monday, March 31st will be given a dividend of 0.50 per share on Friday, April 25th. This represents a $2.00 annualized dividend and a yield of 9.66%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, March 31st.

Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Stock Down 0.8 %

MSDL opened at $20.71 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.83 billion, a P/E ratio of 8.12 and a beta of 0.65. Morgan Stanley Direct Lending has a one year low of $19.28 and a one year high of $24.18. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $20.66 and a 200-day moving average price of $20.52. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.99, a current ratio of 1.56 and a quick ratio of 1.56.

Morgan Stanley Direct Lending (NYSE:MSDL) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, February 27th. The company reported $0.57 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.63 by ($0.06). Morgan Stanley Direct Lending had a return on equity of 12.69% and a net margin of 54.89%. The business had revenue of $103.00 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $107.02 million. Equities research analysts expect that Morgan Stanley Direct Lending will post 2.56 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages recently weighed in on MSDL. Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $22.00 target price on shares of Morgan Stanley Direct Lending in a research note on Tuesday, March 4th. Wells Fargo & Company cut their price objective on Morgan Stanley Direct Lending from $21.00 to $20.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Monday, March 3rd. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $21.38.

About Morgan Stanley Direct Lending

Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Fund is a business development company. It is a non-diversified, externally managed specialty finance company focused on lending to middle-market companies. Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Fund is based in NEW YORK.