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

Prospect Capital Co. (NASDAQ:PSEC) announced 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 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 Price Performance

NASDAQ PSEC opened at $4.44 on Monday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.76, a current ratio of 0.76 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.60. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.97 billion, a PE ratio of -22.20 and a beta of 0.99. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $4.31 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $4.77. Prospect Capital has a 12-month low of $4.09 and a 12-month high of $5.86.

Insider Transactions at Prospect Capital

In other Prospect Capital news, COO M Grier Eliasek purchased 210,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, November 29th. The shares were purchased at an average price of $4.81 per share, with a total value of $1,010,100.00. Following the acquisition, the chief operating officer now directly owns 2,131,130 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $10,250,735.30. This represents a 10.93 % increase in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, CEO John F. Barry purchased 2,000,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, December 24th. The stock was acquired at an average cost of $4.29 per share, for a total transaction of $8,580,000.00. Following the acquisition, the chief executive officer now directly owns 79,477,549 shares in the company, valued at approximately $340,958,685.21. This trade represents a 2.58 % increase in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders bought 2,215,000 shares of company stock worth $9,613,700. 27.10% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Separately, StockNews.com upgraded shares of Prospect Capital from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note 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.