Ares Capital Corp.'s reported leverage has increased slightly to 0.81x debt to equity as of Dec. 31, 2015, above the company's target ratio of 0.65x-0.75x. Furthermore, continued volatility in the leveraged loan market could cause leverage to rise, in our opinion. As a result, we have revised our outlook to negative from stable. At the same time, we affirmed our 'BBB' issuer credit rating on the company and our 'BBB' senior unsecured and senior secured issue ratings. The negative outlook reflects that we could lower the rating over the next 18-24 months because market or credit-related losses could cause leverage to increase well beyond target levels. On March 15, 2016, Standard&Poor's Ratings Services revised its outlook on Ares
