Ares Capital Corporation (ARCC)

Ares Capital Corporation (ARCC) operates as a Business Development Company (BDC), delivering diverse financing solutions predominantly to middle-market enterprises. The firm's expertise lies in facilitating various corporate actions, including funding acquisitions, recapitalizations, and leveraged buyouts. It also extends mezzanine debt, assists with corporate restructurings, and provides crucial rescue financing, in addition to offering growth capital and general refinancing options. ARCC primarily targets investments in companies within the basic and growth manufacturing, business services, consumer products, healthcare (both products and services), and information technology service sectors. Opportunistically, it also explores prospects in industries such as restaurants, retail, oil and gas, and the broader technology space. Geographically, ARCC maintains a broad reach across the United States. Its New York office oversees investments in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, and Southwest regions. The Chicago office manages opportunities in the Midwest, while its Los Angeles presence covers the Western region. In terms of deal parameters, ARCC typically commits between $20 million and $200 million per investment, with an upper limit of $400 million, targeting companies that generate an EBITDA of $10 million to $250 million. For debt-specific placements, the investment range is generally $10 million to $100 million. The company employs a wide array of financial instruments, including revolving credit facilities, first and second lien loans, unitranche structures, warrants, mezzanine debt, private high yield, junior capital, and subordinated debt, alongside selective non-control preferred and common equity investments. ARCC also evaluates participation in senior and subordinated debt financings led by other parties and strategically acquires stressed or discounted debt. It frequently assumes a lead or agent role in its transactions and actively seeks board repres

ARCC is a business development company — a listed vehicle that lends to, and sometimes takes equity in, private middle-market businesses. It elects regulated-investment-company treatment, which requires it to distribute the large majority of its taxable income each year; that requirement, not a board's generosity, is what produces the high headline yield.

The payment is a distribution rather than interest, and it can include return of capital as well as net investment income and realised gains. Most of it is taxed as ordinary income rather than as qualified dividends. The loan book is valued by the manager, not by a market, so net asset value is an estimate. Read how BDCs work.

Figures on this page are computed by Income Investing from the payment history and last price stored in our own database; the payment records come from fmp and the price from fmp, last recomputed Aug 25, 2026. They describe what has been paid, not what will be paid. Yield, payout ratio, our data sources and our methodology are explained elsewhere on the site.

The table lists the 24 most recent recorded dividends for ARCC, newest first, with ex-dates running from Dec 14, 2020 to Sep 15, 2026. The latest is $0.4800 per share in USD, ex-date Sep 15, 2026, pay date Sep 30, 2026. Measured against the nearest payment about a year earlier, 9 are higher, 1 lower and 14 unchanged; the remaining 0 have no comparable payment in the record. None is flagged as a special or one-off payment. Payment records supplied by fmp.

The chart covers 10 complete calendar years for ARCC, 2016 to 2025, per share, in USD. Each bar totals the regular dividends with an ex-dividend date in that calendar year. The year is assigned by ex-dividend date, which is not necessarily the issuer's own dividend year. Our stored payment history for ARCC begins in 2004. The total went from $1.52 in 2016 to $1.92 in 2025 — 26% higher. Within that span 5 years were higher than the year before and 1 lower. The three most recent years shown are 2023 $1.92, 2024 $1.92 and 2025 $1.92. The current year is still in progress and is left out, and special or one-off payments are excluded. This is a record of what was paid, not a projection. Every year shown holds the 4 dividends a quarterly cadence implies, so no year on this chart is short or long because a payment shifted across a year end.