Ballentine Partners LLC Acquires 780 Shares of W.P. Carey Inc. $WPC

Ballentine Partners LLC lifted its holdings in shares of W.P. Carey Inc. (NYSE:WPC) by 11.7% in the second quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 7,451 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock after purchasing an additional 780 shares during the period. Ballentine Partners LLC’s holdings in W.P. Carey were worth $465,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised its holdings in W.P. Carey by 274.7% in the 1st quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 5,112,190 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $322,630,000 after purchasing an additional 3,747,898 shares in the last quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. increased its position in shares of W.P. Carey by 1,016.8% during the first 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 purchased a new position in shares of W.P. Carey during the first quarter valued at about $30,194,000. Private Management Group Inc. bought a new position in W.P. Carey in the first quarter worth about $29,923,000. Finally, Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC purchased a new stake in W.P. Carey in the second quarter worth about $24,030,000. 73.73% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have recently issued reports on WPC. UBS Group increased their target price on W.P. Carey from $63.00 to $66.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, August 15th. BNP Paribas set a $66.00 price objective on W.P. Carey and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, June 9th. BNP Paribas Exane raised shares of W.P. Carey from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $66.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Monday, June 9th. Barclays lifted their price target on shares of W.P. Carey from $61.00 to $64.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 20th. Finally, Evercore ISI boosted their price objective on shares of W.P. Carey from $66.00 to $70.00 and gave the stock an “in-line” rating in a research note on Monday, September 15th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $67.22.

W.P. Carey Trading Up 1.6%

Shares of NYSE:WPC opened at $68.48 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.97, a current ratio of 0.19 and a quick ratio of 0.19. The company has a market cap of $15.00 billion, a P/E ratio of 45.05, a PEG ratio of 9.96 and a beta of 0.82. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $66.19 and its 200-day moving average price is $63.27. W.P. Carey Inc. has a 1 year low of $52.91 and a 1 year high of $69.00.

W.P. Carey (NYSE:WPC) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, July 29th. The real estate investment trust reported $1.28 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.23 by $0.05. The firm had revenue of $430.78 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $420.99 million. W.P. Carey had a net margin of 20.42% and a return on equity of 4.00%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 10.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $1.17 EPS. W.P. Carey has set its FY 2025 guidance at 4.870-4.950 EPS. Sell-side analysts expect that W.P. Carey Inc. will post 4.87 earnings per share for the current year.

W.P. Carey Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, October 15th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, September 30th will be issued a dividend of $0.91 per share. This represents a $3.64 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 5.3%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, September 30th. This is a positive change from W.P. Carey’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.90. W.P. Carey’s payout ratio is currently 236.84%.

About W.P. Carey

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.