Blair William & Co. IL Grows Position in Ares Capital Co. (NASDAQ:ARCC)

Blair William & Co. IL grew its stake in Ares Capital Co. (NASDAQ:ARCC) by 3.3% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 280,705 shares of the investment management company’s stock after buying an additional 8,986 shares during the period. Blair William & Co. IL’s holdings in Ares Capital were worth $6,145,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Several other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Generali Asset Management SPA SGR bought a new position in shares of Ares Capital during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $84,426,000. Raymond James Financial Inc. purchased a new position in Ares Capital during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $58,159,000. Van ECK Associates Corp boosted its position in shares of Ares Capital by 11.8% in the fourth quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 14,145,706 shares of the investment management company’s stock worth $309,649,000 after purchasing an additional 1,489,552 shares during the period. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased its stake in shares of Ares Capital by 26.0% in the fourth quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 4,268,547 shares of the investment management company’s stock worth $93,439,000 after purchasing an additional 881,450 shares in the last quarter. Finally, CCLA Investment Management raised its position in shares of Ares Capital by 31.6% during the 4th quarter. CCLA Investment Management now owns 2,211,955 shares of the investment management company’s stock valued at $48,419,000 after purchasing an additional 531,305 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 27.38% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages recently weighed in on ARCC. Wells Fargo & Company dropped their target price on shares of Ares Capital from $24.00 to $23.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, February 6th. Royal Bank of Canada increased their target price on Ares Capital from $23.00 to $24.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, February 7th. Raymond James cut Ares Capital from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a report on Thursday, February 6th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price objective on shares of Ares Capital from $23.00 to $24.50 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, February 3rd. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded shares of Ares Capital from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Friday, February 7th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating, seven have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Ares Capital presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $22.94.

Ares Capital Trading Down 1.1 %

ARCC stock opened at $22.11 on Monday. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $22.80 and a 200 day moving average price of $21.99. Ares Capital Co. has a fifty-two week low of $19.32 and a fifty-two week high of $23.84. The firm has a market cap of $15.13 billion, a PE ratio of 9.02 and a beta of 1.00. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.03, a quick ratio of 1.21 and a current ratio of 1.21.

Ares Capital (NASDAQ:ARCC) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 5th. The investment management company reported $0.55 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.58 by ($0.03). Ares Capital had a return on equity of 11.54% and a net margin of 50.90%. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Ares Capital Co. will post 2.19 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Ares Capital Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 31st. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 14th will be given a dividend of $0.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, March 14th. This represents a $1.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 8.68%. Ares Capital’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 78.37%.

Ares Capital Company 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.