RCR declares final FY24 dividend

RL Commercial REIT [RCR 6.04, down 0.2%; 203% avgVol] a Q4/24 dividend of P0.101/share [link], payable on February 28 to shareholders of record as of February 20. The dividend has an annualized yield of 6.69% based on the previous closing price, which is essentially flat with RCR’s pre-dividend annualized yield. The total amount of the dividend is P1587 million, which is 93% of the P1700 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 14.73%, up from its pre-dividend total return of 13.17%.

MB bottom-line: Ignoring the special dividend that RCR declared as a result of the huge P34 billion infusion of mostly mall assets, I’ve seen a few posts talking about the disappointing size of this Q4 dividend. Check @mokongboy’s great chart below of RCR’s dividends to see why. The Q3 dividend was P0.1009/share, then all the assets got infused, and then the Q4 dividend was P0.1010/share. Sure, that’s an increase, but that’s only a 0.01% increase. That’s underwhelming. RCR’s stock price has increased 20% since the announcement of the infusion back in June of 2024, and while I can’t prove the increase is tied to the injection and the belief that future quarterly dividends would grow, I know from talking to a lot of REIT investors every day that this was a big part of what caused the buyers spoke with to move into RCR. Don’t get me twisted, it’s a good move for RCR to diversify its asset base away from commercial real estate and it’s not a massive “L” for it to maintain a stable dividend, but the PR around the injection and the expectations that grew following the special dividend were definitely hinting at bigger and better things. Maybe that’s still coming? I don’t know. RCR seems pretty proud of its ability to increase dividends by P0.001 per quarter, but I think investors were looking for better to keep its streak of quarterly dividend increases alive.       

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