BDC Dividends

Business Development Companies — BDCs for short — typically elect RIC (Regulated Investment Company) status, which means the company is then required to distribute 90% of taxable income to shareholders. As long as the company is doing well and producing taxable income (as opposed to losses), investors in BDCs can therefore expect to receive dividends. BDC dividends are often quite high due to this enforced high payout ratio, and furthermore BDCs can avoid a federal excise tax if they take their taxable income payout ratio up to 98%. The result is that BDCs with high earnings produce extraordinarily high levels of BDC dividends to shareholders. Below is a list of BDC dividends ranked by yield on current share price (highest to lowest) as well as yield on the BDC's net asset value (NAV).