Yahoo Finance Here's Why You Should Retain Vornado Realty (VNO) Stock Now
Vornado Realty Trust VNO boasts a concentration of high-quality office properties strategically located in markets of New York, Chicago and San Francisco. It is poised to benefit from tenants’ healthy demand for premier office spaces with class-apart amenities. However, the overall choppy office real estate landscape and a high interest rate environment raise concerns for the company.
What’s Aiding VNO?
Vornado's focus on having assets in a few select high-rent, high-barrier-to-entry markets, along with a diversified tenant base that includes several industry bellwethers are expected to drive steady cash flows and fuel its growth over the long term. Though we estimate a 1.2% year-over-year decrease in total revenues in 2024, the metric is expected to rise 1% and 5.2% in 2025 and 2026, respectively.
The office-using job growth, enhanced space efficiency and the expansion of technology, finance and media firms are set to bolster rental revenues in the upcoming periods. New York continues to attract office occupiers aiming to expand their workspace.
Rents in the newly constructed or best-in-class redeveloped assets, which offer ample amenities at transit-centric locations, have risen. Hence, Vornado is well-positioned to benefit from the emerging trend.
Vornado enjoys a healthy balance sheet strength. As of Dec 31, 2023, the company had $3.2 billion of liquidity. Further, VNO has been securing loan refinancing in recent years, enabling it to reduce interest rates on borrowings and extend debt maturities. A flexible financial position will enable it to take advantage of future investment opportunities and fund its development projects.
Over the past three months, shares of this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company have declined 1.4% compared with the industry’s fall of 4.8%.
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What’s Hurting VNO?
With persistent macroeconomic uncertainty and hybrid working environment, it is expected that near-term demand for office spaces will remain choppy. Vornado has high office market exposure in New York City. This makes the company’s cash flows vulnerable to the macroeconomic situation prevailing in that region.
Vornado is troubled by the current high interest rate setting. Elevated rates result in significant borrowing expenses for the company, impacting its capacity to acquire or develop real estate assets. With a substantial debt load, Vornado's share of total debt as of Dec 31, 2023, was approximately $10.28 billion. Moreover, with high interest rates still in place, the dividend payout may seem to be less attractive than the yields on fixed-income and money market accounts.
Solid dividend payouts remain the biggest attraction for REIT investors. However, in December 2023, Vornado announced a dividend of 30 cents per share for the fourth quarter of 2023, which marked a reduction of 20% from the prior payout. The company anticipates paying a single common share dividend in the fourth quarter of 2024, as part of its common share dividend policy for the year. We estimate a year-over-year decline of 15.5% in FFO as adjusted in 2024. Hence, any significant turnaround in dividend payment is likely to remain elusive in the near term.
Stocks to Consider
Some better-ranked stocks from the broader REIT sector are Tanger Inc. SKT and SL Green Realty SLG, each carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for SKT’s 2024 FFO per share stands at $2.03, indicating an increase of 3.6% from the year-ago reported figure.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for SLG’s 2024 FFO per share is pinned at $5.88, suggesting year-over-year growth of 19%.
Note: Anything related to earnings presented in this write-up represent funds from operations (FFO), a widely used metric to gauge the performance of REITs.
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Vornado Realty Trust (VNO) : Free Stock Analysis Report
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