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

W. P. Carey Inc. (NYSE:WPC) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, December 12th,RTT News reports. Investors of record on Tuesday, December 31st will be given 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 yield of 6.30%. This is a boost from W. P. Carey’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.88.

W. P. Carey has decreased its dividend by an average of 0.9% annually over the last three years. W. P. Carey has a payout ratio of 134.6% meaning the company cannot currently cover its dividend with earnings alone and is relying on its balance sheet to cover its dividend payments. Equities 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 $3.50 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 75.1%.

W. P. Carey Price Performance

Shares of WPC stock opened at $55.89 on Friday. W. P. Carey has a 12 month low of $53.09 and a 12 month high of $67.40. The company has a market capitalization of $12.23 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.00, a P/E/G ratio of 1.04 and a beta of 0.96. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $57.21 and a two-hundred day moving average of $57.99. 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 EPS 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 the consensus estimate of $377.43 million. W. P. Carey had a return on equity of 6.45% and a net margin of 35.12%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 11.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business earned $1.32 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts expect that W. P. Carey will post 4.5 EPS for the current year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research analysts have commented on the stock. UBS Group cut their price target on shares of W. P. Carey from $62.00 to $60.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, November 14th. Wells Fargo & Company reiterated an “equal weight” rating and issued a $63.00 price target (up from $62.00) on shares of W. P. Carey in a research report on Tuesday, October 1st. Evercore ISI boosted their target price on shares of W. P. Carey from $63.00 to $66.00 and gave the company an “in-line” rating in a research note on Monday, September 16th. Finally, Barclays increased their target price on shares of W. P. Carey from $54.00 to $56.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 10th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $62.88.

About W. P. Carey

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.