Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo & Co. LLC Acquires New Position in Morgan Stanley Direct Lending (NYSE:MSDL)

Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo & Co. LLC bought a new position in Morgan Stanley Direct Lending (NYSE:MSDL) in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor bought 68,785 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,421,000. Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo & Co. LLC owned approximately 0.08% of Morgan Stanley Direct Lending as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. grew its stake in shares of Morgan Stanley Direct Lending by 3,509.0% in the 3rd quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 28,872 shares of the company’s stock valued at $571,000 after buying an additional 28,072 shares in the last quarter. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. bought a new stake in Morgan Stanley Direct Lending in the fourth quarter worth approximately $511,000. Shikiar Asset Management Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Morgan Stanley Direct Lending during the 4th quarter worth $1,780,000. Franklin Resources Inc. bought a new position in shares of Morgan Stanley Direct Lending during the 3rd quarter valued at $1,555,000. Finally, Jane Street Group LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Morgan Stanley Direct Lending in the 3rd quarter valued at $295,000.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have commented on the stock. Royal Bank of Canada reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $22.00 target price on shares of Morgan Stanley Direct Lending in a research report 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 on the stock in a research note on Monday, March 3rd. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $21.38.

Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Stock Down 2.4 %

Morgan Stanley Direct Lending stock opened at $18.31 on Tuesday. 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 has a fifty-two week low of $17.95 and a fifty-two week high of $24.18. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $20.49 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $20.51. The firm has a market cap of $1.62 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 7.18 and a beta of 0.44.

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

Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, April 25th. Stockholders of record on Monday, March 31st will be paid a $0.50 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Monday, March 31st. This represents a $2.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 10.92%. Morgan Stanley Direct Lending’s payout ratio is 82.30%.

Morgan Stanley Direct Lending 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.