RLJ Lodging Trust (NYSE:RLJ) to Issue $0.15 Quarterly Dividend

RLJ Lodging Trust (NYSE:RLJ) declared a quarterly dividend on Friday, December 13th,RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, December 31st will be paid a dividend of 0.15 per share by the real estate investment trust on Wednesday, January 15th. This represents a $0.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 5.81%.

RLJ Lodging Trust has a dividend payout ratio of 315.8% indicating that 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 RLJ Lodging Trust to earn $1.42 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.60 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 42.3%.

RLJ Lodging Trust Stock Down 1.5 %

RLJ Lodging Trust stock traded down $0.16 during mid-day trading on Friday, reaching $10.33. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 18,260 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,425,012. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $9.61 and its 200 day simple moving average is $9.51. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.14, a quick ratio of 2.74 and a current ratio of 2.74. RLJ Lodging Trust has a 12 month low of $8.74 and a 12 month high of $12.39. The company has a market capitalization of $1.58 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 36.14, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.35 and a beta of 1.72.

RLJ Lodging Trust (NYSE:RLJ) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, November 6th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.09 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.32 by ($0.23). RLJ Lodging Trust had a net margin of 5.19% and a return on equity of 3.58%. The company had revenue of $345.74 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $342.93 million. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.40 EPS. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 3.4% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts anticipate that RLJ Lodging Trust will post 1.34 earnings per share for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts have issued reports on the company. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price target on RLJ Lodging Trust from $10.00 to $10.50 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a report on Monday. Oppenheimer increased their price target on shares of RLJ Lodging Trust from $11.00 to $12.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, November 12th. Truist Financial reduced their price objective on RLJ Lodging Trust from $14.00 to $11.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Monday, October 28th. StockNews.com upgraded RLJ Lodging Trust from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, December 6th. Finally, Wolfe Research downgraded shares of RLJ Lodging Trust from an “outperform” rating to a “peer perform” rating in a research note on Thursday, September 26th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, RLJ Lodging Trust has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $11.50.

About RLJ Lodging Trust

RLJ Lodging Trust is a self-advised, publicly traded real estate investment trust that owns primarily premium-branded, high-margin, focused-service and compact full-service hotels. The Company's portfolio currently consists of 96 hotels with approximately 21,200 rooms, located in 23 states and the District of Columbia and an ownership interest in one unconsolidated hotel with 171 rooms.