Chalirmpoj Pimpisarn
Ares Capital (NASDAQ:ARCC) Q1 earnings fell just short of the Wall Street consensus even as its investing activity picked up and its net asset value per share reached a record.
Q1 core EPS of $0.59,missing the average analyst estimate of $0.60, fell from $0.63 in the previous quarter and rose from $0.57 a year ago.
Net investment income of $325M declined from $345M in Q4 2023 and increased from $318M in Q1 2023. Interest income from investments slipped to $513M, vs. the Visible Alpha consensus of $530.7M, from $521M in Q4 and climbed from $470M in Q1 2023.
“We are off to a strong start to the year, with a healthy level of earnings, low non-accruals, moderate leverage, increased year-over-year investment activity and record net asset value per share,” said CEO Kipp deVeer.
Net asset per share climbed to $19.53 at the end of Q1 rm $19.24 at the end of Q4.
Ares Capital’s (ARCC) debt-equity ratio declined to 0.99x at March 31, 2024, from 1.07x at Dec. 31, 2023.
Expenses totaled $369M, increasing from $353M in the prior quarter and $298M a year ago.
Portfolio investments at fair value rose to $23.1B at March 31, 2024, from $22.9B at Dec. 31. 2023.
During the quarter, Ares Capital (ARCC) made gross commitments of $3.55B vs. $2.38B in the previous quarter and $766M a year ago. Exits of commitments came to $3.41B vs. $1.43B in Q4 and $1.88B in Q1 2023.
As of April 24, 2024, the company’s investment backlog stood at $1.3B and pipeline was $30M.
From April 1 through April 24, 2024, ARCC made new investment commitments of ~$1.2B, of which ~$1.1B were funded. During the same period it exited ~$249M of investment commitments.
Conference call at 10:00 AM ET.
Earlier, Ares Capital non-GAAP EPS of $0.59 misses by $0.01
