Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board Sells 3,479 Shares of W.P. Carey Inc. $WPC

Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board lessened its stake in shares of W.P. Carey Inc. (NYSE:WPC) by 3.4% during the second quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 99,319 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock after selling 3,479 shares during the period. Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board’s holdings in W.P. Carey were worth $6,196,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other large investors have also bought and sold shares of the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised its holdings in shares of W.P. Carey by 274.7% during the first quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 5,112,190 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $322,630,000 after purchasing an additional 3,747,898 shares during the period. Pacer Advisors Inc. grew its stake in shares of W.P. Carey by 1,016.8% in the 1st quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 1,751,921 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $110,564,000 after buying an additional 1,595,045 shares during the period. Nuveen LLC bought a new stake in W.P. Carey in the 1st quarter valued at about $30,194,000. Private Management Group Inc. acquired a new position in W.P. Carey during the 1st quarter worth approximately $29,923,000. Finally, Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC bought a new position in W.P. Carey in the second quarter worth approximately $24,030,000. 73.73% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

WPC has been the subject of several recent research reports. Evercore ISI boosted their price objective on W.P. Carey from $70.00 to $72.00 and gave the company an “in-line” rating in a report on Thursday, October 30th. UBS Group boosted their price target on shares of W.P. Carey from $63.00 to $66.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, August 15th. Scotiabank raised their price objective on shares of W.P. Carey from $64.00 to $67.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Friday, September 5th. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “hold (c)” rating on shares of W.P. Carey in a report on Wednesday, October 8th. Finally, Barclays boosted their target price on shares of W.P. Carey from $64.00 to $66.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a research report on Monday, October 20th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, seven have issued a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $67.89.

W.P. Carey Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:WPC opened at $67.58 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 0.25, a quick ratio of 0.19 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.02. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $67.49 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $64.89. W.P. Carey Inc. has a 1-year low of $52.91 and a 1-year high of $69.79. The stock has a market cap of $14.81 billion, a PE ratio of 40.96, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 9.57 and a beta of 0.80.

W.P. Carey (NYSE:WPC) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, October 28th. The real estate investment trust reported $1.25 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.23 by $0.02. W.P. Carey had a net margin of 21.75% and a return on equity of 4.40%. The firm had revenue of $431.30 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $424.44 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $1.18 EPS. The business’s revenue was up 8.5% compared to the same quarter last year. W.P. Carey has set its FY 2025 guidance at 4.930-4.990 EPS. As a group, analysts forecast that W.P. Carey Inc. will post 4.87 EPS for the current fiscal year.

W.P. Carey Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, October 15th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, September 30th were paid a $0.91 dividend. This is a positive change from W.P. Carey’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.90. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, September 30th. This represents a $3.64 annualized dividend and a yield of 5.4%. W.P. Carey’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 220.61%.

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.