Allied Capital Corp.

1919 Pennsylvania Ave. NW

Year founded: 1958

Industry: Financial services

Post 200 Category: Top 125 Companies

Revenue: $367.09 Million

Net Income/Loss: $249.49 Million

Earnings per share: $1.88

Dividend: $2.30

Stockholder equity: $1.98 Billion

Auditor: KPMG LLP

Stock: ALD

Assets: $3.26 Billion

Market capitalization: $3.50 Billion

52-week high: 28.5 12/21/2004

52-week low: 21.6 7/26/2004

Chairman and CEO: William L. Walton

COO: Joan M. Sweeney

Employees: 162

Local employees: 139

Description: Allied Capital is a business lending and investment firm that provides buyout, expansion and other forms of debt and equity financing. It also invests in commercial real estate loans.

Developments: Allied Capital is the oldest, and one of the biggest, in the class of companies known as business development companies, or BDCs. It raises money from stock sales and borrowings that it then uses to make loans to and invest in private companies. It pays out nearly all of its investment income and whatever gains it makes when it sells investments to shareholders in the form of dividends. In 2002 and 2003, the company was beset by frequent public squabbles with short-sellers — investors who bet a company's stock price will fall — over how the company recognized income and valued its investments. Last year, the climate quieted down, though the fallout from earlier years continued. The Department of Justice and the U.S. attorney's office in Washington have asked the company to provide documents for a criminal investigation involving its largest investment, the New York small-business lender Business Loan Express LLC. Short-sellers and other investors have criticized Allied's valuation of Business Loan Express and questioned an asset transfer deal between Allied and the company. Financially, however, Allied has moved forward. The yield on its portfolio of loan and investments has held steady at slightly more than 14 percent for the past four years, and the company's profit has grown in each of the past four years. Though its biggest investment is in Business Loan Express, most of Allied's capital is deployed in mid-size industrial, consumer-product and business-service firms. Like its smaller competitors, Allied Capital in 2004 began to put more money in its own controlled buyouts instead of simply making loans to finance buyouts by others.

Executive Compensation
Chairman and CEO: William L. Walton
Total Cash: $2,207,692.00
Total Compensation: $12,582,227.00

COO: Joan M. Sweeney
Total Cash: $1,473,077.00
Total Compensation: $8,499,155.00

Managing Director: John M. Scheurer
Total Cash: $889,615.00
Total Compensation: $4,853,264.00