Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending (NYSE:NCDL) Reaches New 12-Month Low – Here’s What Happened

Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending Corp. (NYSE:NCDL) reached a new 52-week low during trading on Monday. The company traded as low as $10.46 and last traded at $10.5090, with a volume of 16,261 shares traded. The stock had previously closed at $10.86.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities analysts have issued reports on NCDL shares. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods cut their price objective on Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending from $15.00 to $13.50 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, August 10th. Wall Street Zen upgraded Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, July 25th. Zacks Research upgraded Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 21st. Finally, UBS Group raised shares of Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and dropped their target price for the stock from $14.75 to $13.00 in a research note on Tuesday, September 1st. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, two have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $13.62.

Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending Trading Up 0.7%

The company has a market capitalization of $516.59 million, a P/E ratio of 11.01 and a beta of 0.55. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $11.81 and a 200 day moving average price of $12.61.

Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending (NYSE:NCDL) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 6th. The company reported $0.41 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.39 by $0.02. The business had revenue of $11.14 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $46.72 million. Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending had a net margin of 24.44% and a return on equity of 9.60%. On average, analysts forecast that Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending Corp. will post 1.60 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, October 27th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, September 30th will be given a dividend of $0.36 per share. This represents a $1.44 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 13.8%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, September 30th. Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 151.58%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in NCDL. Opal Wealth Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending by 2.0% during the third quarter. Opal Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 646,793 shares of the company’s stock worth $7,270,000 after acquiring an additional 12,522 shares in the last quarter. Hennion & Walsh Asset Management Inc. grew its stake in Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending by 2.9% in the second quarter. Hennion & Walsh Asset Management Inc. now owns 442,680 shares of the company’s stock valued at $5,498,000 after acquiring an additional 12,646 shares during the period. Centurion Wealth Management LLC acquired a new position in Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending in the second quarter valued at about $3,879,000. Bulldog Investors LLP increased its holdings in shares of Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending by 29.6% in the first quarter. Bulldog Investors LLP now owns 224,822 shares of the company’s stock worth $2,860,000 after acquiring an additional 51,410 shares in the last quarter. Finally, BI Asset Management Fondsmaeglerselskab A S increased its holdings in shares of Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending by 3.4% in the first quarter. BI Asset Management Fondsmaeglerselskab A S now owns 155,522 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,978,000 after acquiring an additional 5,046 shares in the last quarter.

About Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending

Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending Corp. (NYSE:NCDL) is a business development company that seeks to generate current income and, to a lesser extent, long-term capital appreciation by investing in privately owned middle-market companies. The company primarily focuses on directly originated loans and other debt investments rather than publicly traded securities.

NCDL generally invests in senior-secured loans, including first-lien and unitranche loans, and may make select junior debt and equity investments.