Based on the aggregated intelligence of 180,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, private equity firm American Capital (Nasdaq: ACAS) has earned a respected four-star ranking.

With that in mind, let's take a closer look at American Capital's business and see what CAPS investors are saying about the stock right now.

American Capital facts

Headquarters (founded) Bethesda, Md. (1986)
Market Cap $3.6 billion
Industry Asset management
Trailing-12-Month Revenue $602.0 million
Management Founder/Chairman/CEO Malon Wilkus
CFO John Erickson
Return on Equity (average, past 3 years) 27.1%
Cash/Debt $316.6 million / $988.0 million
Competitors Ares Capital
Fortress Investment Group LLC
MCG Capital

Sources: S&P Capital IQ and Motley Fool CAPS.

On CAPS, 95% of the 2,054 of the members who have rated American Capital believe the stock will outperform the S&P 500 going forward.

A couple of months ago, one of those Fools, All-Star jwray01, tapped American Capital as an attractive bargain opportunity:

[V]ery low P/B and P/E. They invest in corporate debt on a leveraged basis. They also manage [American Capital Agency] and [American Capital Mortgage] and manage some private equity funds and collect management fees from that. They also have a huge tax loss carryover.

They got burned really badly during the 2008 liquidity crisis and ever since then it's been trading at a major discount to book value. Too low, [in my opinion].

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