RCR declares growing Q2 dividend

RL Commercial REIT [RCR 5.70, up 0.9%; 225% avgVol] [link] declared a Q2/24 dividend of P0.0992, payable on September 2 to shareholders of record as of August 27. The dividend has an annualized yield of 6.96% based on the previous closing price, which is marginally higher than RCR's pre-dividend annualized yield of 6.95%. The total amount of the dividend is P1,064 million, which is 93% of the P1,147 million in distributable income that RCR reported for the quarter. Relative to RCR's IPO price, the dividend increased RCR's total stock and dividend return to 5.93%, up from its pre-dividend total return of 4.39%. RCR’s stock price is up 18.6% year-to-date. It has a TTM yield of 6.89% and an estimated yield of 6.95%.

MB bottom-line: It’s great to see RCR organically growing its dividend even before shareholders get access to the income from its massive P34 billion swap. It’s not a huge increase (+1.43% y/y, +0.20% q/q), but growth is growth (DDMPR shareholders don’t have any more tears to cry). The income from those new properties has been accruing to the benefit of RCR shareholders since April 1, 2024, but the parties will likely wait until after the swap is officially approved by the SEC and completed before any of that accrued cash will physically change hands. Logically this makes sense, because the shares that RCR issued to RLC won’t be officially transferred to RLC until the swap is approved. RLC wouldn’t want to miss out on getting its hands on a larger portion of that “new” Q2 RCR income.

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