Raymond James Financial Services Advisors Inc. Purchases 29,671 Shares of Ares Capital Co. (NASDAQ:ARCC)

Raymond James Financial Services Advisors Inc. boosted its position in shares of Ares Capital Co. (NASDAQ:ARCC) by 5.4% during the first quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 582,578 shares of the investment management company’s stock after acquiring an additional 29,671 shares during the quarter. Raymond James Financial Services Advisors Inc.’s holdings in Ares Capital were worth $12,129,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the business. Van ECK Associates Corp increased its stake in Ares Capital by 11.3% during the fourth quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 8,282,079 shares of the investment management company’s stock worth $165,890,000 after acquiring an additional 840,823 shares during the last quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Ares Capital by 1,865.8% in the 4th quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 4,214,991 shares of the investment management company’s stock valued at $844,260,000 after acquiring an additional 4,000,570 shares during the period. Confluence Investment Management LLC bought a new position in Ares Capital in the first quarter worth about $86,227,000. Advisors Capital Management LLC lifted its position in Ares Capital by 0.8% during the third quarter. Advisors Capital Management LLC now owns 3,043,209 shares of the investment management company’s stock valued at $59,251,000 after acquiring an additional 23,276 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Sound Income Strategies LLC boosted its position in shares of Ares Capital by 5.4% in the 1st quarter. Sound Income Strategies LLC now owns 2,060,063 shares of the investment management company’s stock worth $42,891,000 after purchasing an additional 105,277 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 27.38% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

ARCC has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. Truist Financial upped their price target on shares of Ares Capital from $22.00 to $23.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their target price on shares of Ares Capital from $19.00 to $20.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Monday, January 29th. Oppenheimer raised their price objective on Ares Capital from $21.00 to $22.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price target on Ares Capital from $21.50 to $22.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday. Finally, JMP Securities reaffirmed a “market outperform” rating and set a $21.00 target price on shares of Ares Capital in a research note on Tuesday, March 26th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $21.43.

Ares Capital Stock Performance

Shares of ARCC stock traded up $0.07 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $20.61. The stock had a trading volume of 2,902,245 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,632,858. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.99, a current ratio of 1.63 and a quick ratio of 1.24. The firm has a market cap of $12.53 billion, a PE ratio of 7.06 and a beta of 0.99. Ares Capital Co. has a fifty-two week low of $17.53 and a fifty-two week high of $21.00. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $20.42 and its 200-day simple moving average is $20.06.

Ares Capital (NASDAQ:ARCC) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 1st. The investment management company reported $0.59 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.60 by ($0.01). The firm had revenue of $701.00 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $703.85 million. Ares Capital had a return on equity of 12.37% and a net margin of 62.77%. The business’s revenue was up 13.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $0.56 EPS. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Ares Capital Co. will post 2.35 earnings per share for the current year.

Ares Capital Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, June 28th. Stockholders of record on Friday, June 14th will be given a $0.48 dividend. This represents a $1.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 9.32%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, June 13th. Ares Capital’s dividend payout ratio is currently 65.75%.

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.