Apollo Investment Corp. (AINV): The Stats To Know

Tomorrow, Apollo Investment Corp. (NASDAQ:AINV) will release its latest quarterly results. The key to making smart investment decisions on stocks reporting earnings is to anticipate how they’ll do before they announce results, leaving you fully prepared to respond quickly to whatever inevitable surprises arise. That way, you’ll be less likely to make an uninformed, kneejerk reaction to news that turns out to be exactly the wrong move.

Apollo Investment Corp. (NASDAQ:AINV) is a business development company, taking advantage of favorable tax laws to avoid corporate-level taxation on its portfolio of investments. To reap those tax benefits, Apollo Investment Corp. (NASDAQ:AINV) has to pay out the bulk of its income to shareholders as dividends, and investors have come to rely on its high yields. But will the good times continue for the BDC? Let’s take an early look at what’s been happening with Apollo Investment over the past quarter and what we’re likely to see in its quarterly report.

Stats on Apollo Investment

Source: Yahoo! Finance.

How will Apollo’s earnings fare this quarter?
Analysts haven’t made any changes to their views on Apollo Investment Corp. (NASDAQ:AINV)’s earnings prospects recently, keeping their views unchanged both for the March quarter and for the 2014 fiscal year. The stock has also had somewhat muted movements lately, rising just 5% since mid-February.

Apollo Investment Corp. (NASDAQ:AINV) and other business development companies have attracted the attention of yield-hungry investors who have suffered from falling income from more traditional income-producing investments. By making investments in small companies that typically don’t have access to broader sources of financial capital, Apollo and its peers are able to generate impressive returns. Rival Prospect Capital Corporation (NASDAQ:PSEC) has produced even higher double-digit yields from its willingness to make both debt and equity investments in its portfolio companies. But even for Apollo and peer Ares Capital Corporation (NASDAQ:ARCC), both of which largely restrict themselves to debt and secured loans, attractive yields have appealed greatly to investors.

But Apollo’s business model isn’t without risk. The BDC has more than $1 billion in debt on its balance sheet, most of which is secured by its investment portfolio. As a result, Apollo’s portfolio is effectively leveraged, albeit not nearly as extensively as companies like mortgage REITs that rely largely on leverage to boost income levels from mortgage-backed securities. Apollo Investment Corp. (NASDAQ:AINV) takes steps to protect itself from losses from its investments, but leverage boosts the potential impact of any problems on shareholders. Both Ares Capital Corporation (NASDAQ:ARCC) and Prospect Capital Corporation (NASDAQ:PSEC) also have similar levels of debt on their respective balance sheets.