Bahl & Gaynor Inc. Sells 4,159 Shares of W. P. Carey Inc. (NYSE:WPC)

Bahl & Gaynor Inc. trimmed its position in W. P. Carey Inc. (NYSE:WPC) by 16.7% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 20,709 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock after selling 4,159 shares during the period. Bahl & Gaynor Inc.’s holdings in W. P. Carey were worth $1,128,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of the company. RFG Advisory LLC increased its position in shares of W. P. Carey by 91.7% in the 4th quarter. RFG Advisory LLC now owns 6,373 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $347,000 after buying an additional 3,049 shares in the last quarter. Equity Investment Corp raised its position in shares of W. P. Carey by 0.7% during the third quarter. Equity Investment Corp now owns 1,481,627 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $92,305,000 after purchasing an additional 9,610 shares during the period. Stifel Financial Corp lifted its holdings in shares of W. P. Carey by 7.0% during the 3rd quarter. Stifel Financial Corp now owns 31,784 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $1,980,000 after purchasing an additional 2,075 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC lifted its holdings in shares of W. P. Carey by 103.3% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 806,082 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $50,219,000 after purchasing an additional 409,593 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Erste Asset Management GmbH acquired a new position in shares of W. P. Carey in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $1,267,000. Institutional investors own 73.73% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several brokerages have recently issued reports on WPC. Scotiabank lowered their price objective on shares of W. P. Carey from $60.00 to $59.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, January 16th. BMO Capital Markets raised W. P. Carey from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and upped their price objective for the stock from $60.00 to $67.00 in a research report on Tuesday, February 18th. JMP Securities restated a “market perform” rating on shares of W. P. Carey in a research note on Thursday, February 13th. Barclays boosted their price objective on shares of W. P. Carey from $56.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a research report on Tuesday. Finally, UBS Group lowered their price target on shares of W. P. Carey from $62.00 to $60.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, November 14th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $62.88.

W. P. Carey Price Performance

Shares of WPC opened at $65.02 on Thursday. The company has a current ratio of 0.98, a quick ratio of 0.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.95. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $57.16 and its 200 day simple moving average is $58.06. W. P. Carey Inc. has a 1-year low of $52.91 and a 1-year high of $65.45. The company has a market cap of $14.23 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.11, a PEG ratio of 1.06 and a beta of 0.97.

W. P. Carey Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 15th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, December 31st were paid a dividend of $0.88 per share. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, December 31st. This is a positive change from W. P. Carey’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.88. This represents a $3.52 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 5.41%. W. P. Carey’s payout ratio is currently 168.42%.

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.