MREIT declares growing Q2 dividend

MREIT [MREIT 12.94 unch; 113% avgVol] [link] declared a Q2/24 dividend of P0.2474/share, payable on August 30 to shareholders of record as of August 16. The dividend has an annualized yield of 7.65% based on the previous closing price (~7.60% pre-dividend). The total amount of the dividend is P692 million, which is 93% of the P744 million in distributable income that MREIT reported for the quarter. Relative to MREIT's IPO price, the dividend increased MREIT's total stock and dividend return to -1.38%, up from its pre-dividend total return of -2.92%. Cumulatively, MREIT has distributed 92.9% of its H1/24 distributable income. MREIT is up 5.2% YTD.

MB bottom-line: This is MREIT keeping the wheel steady. The growth in distributable income wasn’t big (0.3%), so it appears as though the company’s management team decided to beat the previous dividend by increasing the portion of the distributable income that it gave back to shareholders from 92.7% to 93%. That’s not a big deal, but that is one of the levers that REITs can use to maintain the perception of growth. This Q2/24 dividend is actually down very slightly y/y, but up 0.5% q/q. Historically, it’s looked like MREIT’s H1 dividends have tended to be larger than its H2 dividends, so let's see if that holds up this time.

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