Meritage Portfolio Management Sells 3,419 Shares of W. P. Carey Inc. (NYSE:WPC)

Meritage Portfolio Management decreased its position in shares of W. P. Carey Inc. (NYSE:WPC) by 3.9% in the third quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 85,068 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock after selling 3,419 shares during the quarter. Meritage Portfolio Management’s holdings in W. P. Carey were worth $5,300,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Crossmark Global Holdings Inc. increased its stake in W. P. Carey by 6.6% in the 3rd quarter. Crossmark Global Holdings Inc. now owns 15,081 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $940,000 after acquiring an additional 928 shares during the last quarter. Legacy Capital Wealth Partners LLC increased its position in W. P. Carey by 20.7% in the third quarter. Legacy Capital Wealth Partners LLC now owns 9,109 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $567,000 after purchasing an additional 1,560 shares during the last quarter. XML Financial LLC raised its stake in W. P. Carey by 5.1% during the third quarter. XML Financial LLC now owns 34,817 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $2,169,000 after purchasing an additional 1,684 shares in the last quarter. Demars Financial Group LLC lifted its position in W. P. Carey by 2.2% during the third quarter. Demars Financial Group LLC now owns 9,883 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $616,000 after purchasing an additional 216 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Assetmark Inc. increased its holdings in shares of W. P. Carey by 3.1% in the 3rd quarter. Assetmark Inc. now owns 10,013 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $624,000 after buying an additional 304 shares during the last quarter. 73.73% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

WPC has been the subject of several recent research reports. Scotiabank dropped their price target on W. P. Carey from $61.00 to $60.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, August 7th. Evercore ISI boosted their target price on 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. Royal Bank of Canada dropped their price objective on shares of W. P. Carey from $63.00 to $62.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, August 1st. UBS Group increased their target price on shares of W. P. Carey from $57.00 to $63.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 18th. Finally, Barclays lifted their price target on shares of 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 company. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $63.25.

W. P. Carey Trading Up 1.8 %

Shares of W. P. Carey stock traded up $1.03 on Friday, hitting $56.73. 1,116,366 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 1,148,569. W. P. Carey Inc. has a 52 week low of $53.01 and a 52 week high of $67.40. The company has a market cap of $12.42 billion, a PE ratio of 22.33, a PEG ratio of 1.03 and a beta of 0.95. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $60.04 and its 200-day moving average price is $58.22. The company has a current ratio of 1.00, a quick ratio of 1.00 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.90.

W. P. Carey (NYSE:WPC) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.51 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.13 by ($0.62). The firm had revenue of $394.78 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $377.43 million. W. P. Carey had a return on equity of 6.45% and a net margin of 35.12%. W. P. Carey’s quarterly revenue was down 11.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $1.32 earnings per share. Equities research analysts predict that W. P. Carey Inc. will post 4.52 EPS for the current year.

W. P. Carey Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, October 15th. Stockholders of record on Monday, September 30th were given a $0.875 dividend. This represents a $3.50 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 6.17%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, September 30th. This is a boost from W. P. Carey’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.87. W. P. Carey’s dividend payout ratio is presently 137.80%.

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.