W. P. Carey (NYSE:WPC) Raised to “Neutral” at BNP Paribas Exane

BNP Paribas Exane upgraded shares of W. P. Carey (NYSE:WPC) from an underperform rating to a neutral rating in a report published on Monday, MarketBeat.com reports. The firm currently has $66.00 price target on the real estate investment trust’s stock.

WPC has been the topic of several other reports. UBS Group lowered their price objective on W. P. Carey from $66.00 to $63.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, May 13th. Barclays set a $61.00 price target on W. P. Carey and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, May 21st. JMP Securities reissued a “market perform” rating on shares of W. P. Carey in a report on Thursday, February 13th. Scotiabank increased their price target on W. P. Carey from $59.00 to $63.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, March 12th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada increased their price target on W. P. Carey from $410.00 to $420.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, May 1st. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have issued a hold rating and three have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, W. P. Carey has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $104.22.

W. P. Carey Stock Performance

W. P. Carey stock opened at $63.28 on Monday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.98, a current ratio of 0.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.95. The company has a market capitalization of $13.86 billion, a P/E ratio of 30.28, a PEG ratio of 1.06 and a beta of 0.80. The stock’s 50 day moving average is $60.88 and its 200 day moving average is $59.09. W. P. Carey has a twelve month low of $52.91 and a twelve month high of $66.10.

W. P. Carey (NYSE:WPC) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 29th. The real estate investment trust reported $1.17 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.20 by ($0.03). The company had revenue of $407.44 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $412.99 million. W. P. Carey had a return on equity of 5.37% and a net margin of 29.11%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 5.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $1.14 EPS. On average, equities research analysts predict that W. P. Carey will post 4.87 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

W. P. Carey Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, April 15th. Investors of record on Monday, March 31st were issued a $0.89 dividend. This is a boost from W. P. Carey’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.88. This represents a $3.56 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 5.63%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, March 31st. W. P. Carey’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 183.51%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On W. P. Carey

A number of institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Inspire Investing LLC increased its stake in W. P. Carey by 2.3% in the 1st quarter. Inspire Investing LLC now owns 24,482 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $1,545,000 after buying an additional 547 shares in the last quarter. Invst LLC purchased a new stake in W. P. Carey in the 1st quarter worth $734,000. Modern Wealth Management LLC increased its stake in W. P. Carey by 29.6% in the 1st quarter. Modern Wealth Management LLC now owns 9,167 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $578,000 after buying an additional 2,093 shares in the last quarter. Strs Ohio purchased a new stake in W. P. Carey in the 1st quarter worth $7,561,000. Finally, Intrua Financial LLC increased its stake in W. P. Carey by 2.8% in the 1st quarter. Intrua Financial LLC now owns 8,285 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $523,000 after buying an additional 228 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 73.73% of the company’s stock.

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.