Essex Property Trust, Inc. to Issue Quarterly Dividend of $2.45 (NYSE:ESS)

Essex Property Trust, Inc. (NYSE:ESS) announced a quarterly dividend on Friday, December 6th,RTT News reports. Investors of record on Thursday, January 2nd will be paid a dividend of 2.45 per share by the real estate investment trust on Wednesday, January 15th. This represents a $9.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.47%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 2nd.

Essex Property Trust has increased its dividend by an average of 3.6% per year over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 30 consecutive years. Essex Property Trust has a payout ratio of 164.7% indicating that the company cannot currently cover its dividend with earnings alone and is relying on its balance sheet to cover its dividend payments. Analysts expect Essex Property Trust to earn $16.01 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $9.80 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 61.2%.

Essex Property Trust Stock Performance

Shares of ESS stock opened at $282.80 on Tuesday. The company has a current ratio of 1.14, a quick ratio of 1.14 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.13. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $297.11 and a 200-day simple moving average of $291.69. The company has a market cap of $18.17 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.04, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 5.86 and a beta of 0.90. Essex Property Trust has a 12-month low of $223.06 and a 12-month high of $317.73.

Essex Property Trust (NYSE:ESS) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The real estate investment trust reported $1.84 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.88 by ($2.04). The company had revenue of $450.70 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $445.88 million. Essex Property Trust had a net margin of 31.55% and a return on equity of 9.72%. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $3.78 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts forecast that Essex Property Trust will post 15.56 EPS for the current year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have recently weighed in on ESS. Bank of America cut shares of Essex Property Trust from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $307.00 to $321.00 in a research note on Tuesday, September 24th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft raised their price target on shares of Essex Property Trust from $240.00 to $308.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 10th. Evercore ISI upped their price objective on shares of Essex Property Trust from $283.00 to $287.00 and gave the company an “in-line” rating in a research note on Monday, September 16th. BNP Paribas initiated coverage on shares of Essex Property Trust in a research note on Wednesday, September 11th. They issued an “outperform” rating and a $333.00 target price for the company. Finally, Scotiabank increased their price target on Essex Property Trust from $309.00 to $329.00 and gave the stock a “sector outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, September 16th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, thirteen have issued a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Essex Property Trust currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $302.11.

About Essex Property Trust

Essex Property Trust, Inc, an S&P 500 company, is a fully integrated real estate investment trust (REIT) that acquires, develops, redevelops, and manages multifamily residential properties in selected West Coast markets. Essex currently has ownership interests in 252 apartment communities comprising approximately 62,000 apartment homes with an additional property in active development.