Morgan Stanley Direct Lending (NYSE:MSDL) Receives Average Recommendation of “Hold” from Analysts

Morgan Stanley Direct Lending (NYSE:MSDL) has been assigned a consensus recommendation of “Hold” from the six brokerages that are presently covering the company, MarketBeat reports. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and one has issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average 1-year target price among brokerages that have covered the stock in the last year is $21.42.

Several equities analysts have recently issued reports on MSDL shares. Royal Bank of Canada reiterated an “outperform” rating and issued a $22.00 price objective on shares of Morgan Stanley Direct Lending in a research note on Friday, September 13th. UBS Group cut Morgan Stanley Direct Lending from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $23.50 price objective for the company. in a research note on Thursday, July 18th. Wells Fargo & Company decreased 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 research note on Friday, July 26th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their price objective on Morgan Stanley Direct Lending from $22.00 to $20.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, July 29th.

Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Stock Performance

Shares of Morgan Stanley Direct Lending stock opened at $20.17 on Friday. The business has a 50-day moving average of $20.24 and a 200 day moving average of $21.26. Morgan Stanley Direct Lending has a 12 month low of $19.05 and a 12 month high of $24.18. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.80 billion and a price-to-earnings ratio of 6.51. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.89, a current ratio of 1.09 and a quick ratio of 1.09.

Morgan Stanley Direct Lending (NYSE:MSDL) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, August 8th. The company reported $0.63 EPS for the quarter, meeting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.63. Morgan Stanley Direct Lending had a return on equity of 12.57% and a net margin of 60.60%. The company had revenue of $104.19 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $101.60 million. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Morgan Stanley Direct Lending will post 2.54 earnings per share for the current year.

Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a — dividend, which will be paid on Friday, October 25th. Stockholders of record on Monday, September 30th will be given a dividend of $0.50 per share. This represents a dividend yield of 10.1%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, September 30th. Morgan Stanley Direct Lending’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 64.52%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Morgan Stanley Direct Lending

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Van ECK Associates Corp increased its position in Morgan Stanley Direct Lending by 16.3% during the second quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 1,780,243 shares of the company’s stock worth $38,898,000 after buying an additional 250,167 shares during the period. Kingswood Wealth Advisors LLC increased its holdings in shares of Morgan Stanley Direct Lending by 64.8% in the second quarter. Kingswood Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 30,713 shares of the company’s stock valued at $671,000 after purchasing an additional 12,076 shares during the period. Virtu Financial LLC acquired a new position in shares of Morgan Stanley Direct Lending in the first quarter valued at approximately $223,000. Quadrature Capital Ltd acquired a new position in shares of Morgan Stanley Direct Lending in the first quarter valued at approximately $223,000. Finally, Cliffwater LLC acquired a new position in shares of Morgan Stanley Direct Lending in the first quarter valued at approximately $47,035,000.

Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Company Profile

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.