Ancient,

"I think InvestorDiv misses an important point here. ACAS, ALD and all of the rest of the business developement arena have black boxes - as far as the value of their holdings go. The public never gets a peek at the books of the companies they have loaned money to, their "book value" is not open to scrutiny."

This is true.  A BDC is NOT like an open ended mutual fund.  It's like a closed ended one, with a share price being either at a discount or premium to it's NAV.  Your point (and it is a risk with BDCs) is that you don't know exactly what the value of each 'investment' ACAS makes is worth, as you do with a publically traded companys.

Of course, ACAS makes the majority of its earnings, and distributes same as dividends, whenever it exits the positions it holds in those black boxes, and whenever it receives any interest/dividend or service fees from those same boxes.  And those amounts of cash are in a glass, not a black, box!

The proof is in the dividend pudding for ACAS.  That is, the company currently invests in just under 300 other companys.

I treat my holdings in ALD and ACAS exactly as if both are CEFs.  I hold another CEF, RMT, which is in the micro-cap sector, and a third CEF, BLU, which is large cap.  IOW, ALD and ACAS are my publically traded private equity financing fund!