AREIT declares 17th consecutive non-shrinking dividend

AREIT [AREIT 38.30, down 1.5%; 125% avgVol] [link] declared a Q3/24 dividend of P0.58/share. The dividend has an annualized yield of 6.06% based on the previous closing price (5.85% previously). The total amount of the dividend is P1,862 million, which is 90% of the P2,069 million in distributable income that AREIT reported for the quarter and it brings AREIT’s cumulative 9M distribution rate up to exactly 90.0%. Relative to AREIT's IPO price, the dividend increased AREIT's total stock and dividend return to 74.89%, up from its pre-dividend total return of 72.74%.

MB bottom-line: AREIT is up almost 15% YTD and almost 18% over the past 12 months. It’s declared 17 consecutive quarters of growing or stable dividends, injected billions worth of new assets, diversified its portfolio, and has worked to improve its communication with shareholders across all of these developments. And yet, somehow, it’s locked in a battle with the Villar Family’s runty industrial REIT, Premiere Island Power REIT [PREIT 2.14, down 1.8%; 21% avgVol], for “safest income stream on the PSE” as measured by yield. AREIT, the PSE’s first REIT and gold standard for the sector has an estimated yield of 5.85% at its current price, while PREIT, a small company that rents land to a diesel genset operator that has never adjusted its portfolio and that has actually seen its dividend crumble in recent quarters, has an estimated yield of 6.09% (the second lowest yield of any REIT). I’m fairly certain that AREIT’s price is the result of the organic push and pull of arm’s length buyers and sellers, but what does that say about PREIT?

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