MREIT declares largest div in its history

MREIT [MREIT 13.58, up 1.8%; 90% avgVol] [link] declared a Q3/24 dividend of P0.2489/share, payable on December 3 to shareholders of record as of November 18. The dividend has an annualized yield of 7.46% based on the stock’s previous closing price, which is marginally higher than the pre-declaration yield of 7.42%. The total amount of the dividend is P696 million, which is 96% of the P724 million in distributable income MREIT reported for the period. Relative to MREIT’s IPO price, the dividend increased MREIT’s total stock and dividend return to 2.65%. Cumulatively, MREIT has distributed 93.9% of the P2.2 billion in distributable income it has reported through the first three quarters of 2024.

MB bottom-line: While the per-share dividend is the highest ever declared by MREIT, the distributable income reported for the quarter was actually slightly lower than the first two quarters of the year, meaning that MRIET had to distribute a higher percentage of its distributable income (96.1% as compared to 92.7% in Q1 and 93% in Q2) to reach this new high. I don’t think it’s a big deal, and the closer to REIT firms get to distributing 100% of dividends the better for shareholders, but it’s something that will make me want to take a closer look at their Q3 Quarterly Report. Is there anything that has happened--and could this be a trend?--or is this just a blip?  Either way, MREIT is the first REIT to declare Q3 divs, so all the dates have been added to the MB Calendar!

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