W. P. Carey Inc. (NYSE:WPC) Increases Dividend to $0.88 Per Share

W. P. Carey Inc. (NYSE:WPC) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, December 12th,RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, December 31st will be paid a dividend of 0.88 per share by the real estate investment trust on Wednesday, January 15th. This represents a $3.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 6.17%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, December 31st. This is a positive change from W. P. Carey’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.88.

W. P. Carey has decreased its dividend payment by an average of 0.9% annually over the last three years. W. P. Carey has a payout ratio of 133.3% meaning the company cannot currently cover its dividend with earnings alone and is relying on its balance sheet to cover its dividend payments. Equities research analysts expect W. P. Carey to earn $4.66 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $3.52 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 75.5%.

W. P. Carey Trading Up 2.1 %

NYSE:WPC opened at $57.02 on Friday. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $57.15 and a 200 day moving average of $57.99. The company has a quick ratio of 1.00, a current ratio of 1.00 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.90. W. P. Carey has a 52 week low of $53.09 and a 52 week high of $67.40. The stock has a market capitalization of $12.48 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.45, a PEG ratio of 1.04 and a beta of 0.96.

W. P. Carey (NYSE:WPC) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 29th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.51 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.13 by ($0.62). W. P. Carey had a return on equity of 6.45% and a net margin of 35.12%. The business had revenue of $394.78 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $377.43 million. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $1.32 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 11.9% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that W. P. Carey will post 4.5 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages recently commented on WPC. Evercore ISI increased their price objective on shares of W. P. Carey from $63.00 to $66.00 and gave the company an “in-line” rating in a research report on Monday, September 16th. Wells Fargo & Company reaffirmed an “equal weight” rating and issued a $63.00 price target (up previously from $62.00) on shares of W. P. Carey in a report on Tuesday, October 1st. UBS Group dropped their price objective on shares of W. P. Carey from $62.00 to $60.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, November 14th. Finally, Barclays raised their target price on W. P. Carey from $54.00 to $56.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 10th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $62.88.

W. P. Carey Company Profile

W. P. Carey ranks among the largest net lease REITs with a well-diversified portfolio of high-quality, operationally critical commercial real estate, which includes 1,424 net lease properties covering approximately 173 million square feet and a portfolio of 89 self-storage operating properties as of December 31, 2023.