Eagle Point Credit Company Inc. Announces Monthly Dividend of $0.06 (NYSE:ECC)

Eagle Point Credit Company Inc. (NYSE:ECC) announced a monthly dividend on Thursday, August 13th. Investors of record on Friday, December 11th will be given a dividend of 0.06 per share by the investment management company on Thursday, December 31st. This represents a c) annualized dividend and a yield of 18.6%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, December 11th.

Eagle Point Credit has raised its dividend by an average of 0.1%annually over the last three years. Eagle Point Credit has a payout ratio of 136.2% meaning the company cannot currently cover its dividend with earnings alone and is relying on its balance sheet to cover its dividend payments. Equities research analysts expect Eagle Point Credit to earn $0.71 per share next year, which means the company may not be able to cover its $1.28 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 180.3%.

Eagle Point Credit Stock Up 1.4%

Shares of ECC stock opened at $3.88 on Friday. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $3.78 and a 200 day moving average of $4.04. The company has a current ratio of 0.23, a quick ratio of 0.23 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.02. The stock has a market cap of $512.31 million, a P/E ratio of 5.78 and a beta of 0.36. Eagle Point Credit has a twelve month low of $3.46 and a twelve month high of $7.77.

Eagle Point Credit (NYSE:ECC) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 13th. The investment management company reported $0.17 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.18 by ($0.01). Eagle Point Credit had a negative net margin of 87.16% and a negative return on equity of 1.09%. The company had revenue of $37.90 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $41.62 million. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Eagle Point Credit will post 0.71 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Separately, Zacks Research upgraded shares of Eagle Point Credit from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, May 1st. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and two have issued a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $6.50.

Eagle Point Credit Company Profile

Eagle Point Credit Company is a closed-end, non-diversified management investment company that seeks to generate attractive risk-adjusted returns primarily through investments in collateralized loan obligations (CLOs) and related structured credit instruments. The firm is externally managed by Eagle Point Credit Management, LLC, a specialized credit asset manager focused on the structured credit markets. Eagle Point Credit Company’s shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol ECC.

The company’s investment strategy centers on acquiring both equity and debt tranches of actively managed CLOs alongside opportunistic positions in senior secured loans, high-yield bonds and credit derivatives.