RLJ Lodging Trust (NYSE:RLJ) Increases Dividend to $0.15 Per Share

RLJ Lodging Trust (NYSE:RLJ) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, August 1st, Zacks reports. Investors of record on Monday, September 30th will be given a dividend of 0.15 per share by the real estate investment trust on Tuesday, October 15th. This represents a $0.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 6.37%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, September 30th. This is an increase from RLJ Lodging Trust’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.10.

RLJ Lodging Trust has a payout ratio of 333.3% indicating that the company cannot currently cover its dividend with earnings alone and is relying on its balance sheet to cover its dividend payments. Equities research analysts expect RLJ Lodging Trust to earn $1.42 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.60 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 42.3%.

RLJ Lodging Trust Stock Performance

Shares of RLJ opened at $9.42 on Friday. RLJ Lodging Trust has a 52-week low of $8.79 and a 52-week high of $12.39. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $9.32 and its 200 day simple moving average is $10.12. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.12, a quick ratio of 2.60 and a current ratio of 2.60. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.46 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.64, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.94 and a beta of 1.70.

RLJ Lodging Trust (NYSE:RLJ) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 1st. The real estate investment trust reported $0.20 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.45 by ($0.25). The firm had revenue of $369.30 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $365.67 million. RLJ Lodging Trust had a return on equity of 3.34% and a net margin of 4.93%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 3.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.56 earnings per share. Research analysts forecast that RLJ Lodging Trust will post 1.34 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have commented on RLJ. StockNews.com downgraded shares of RLJ Lodging Trust from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Friday, September 20th. Bank of America dropped their price objective on RLJ Lodging Trust from $12.00 to $10.00 and set an “underperform” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, July 22nd. Wells Fargo & Company cut RLJ Lodging Trust from an “equal weight” rating to an “underweight” rating and reduced their target price for the stock from $11.00 to $9.00 in a research report on Friday, September 13th. Wolfe Research cut RLJ Lodging Trust from an “outperform” rating to a “peer perform” rating in a report on Thursday. Finally, Robert W. Baird cut their price objective on RLJ Lodging Trust from $13.00 to $12.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, June 11th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and three have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, RLJ Lodging Trust presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $12.25.

About RLJ Lodging Trust

RLJ Lodging Trust is a self-advised, publicly traded real estate investment trust that owns primarily premium-branded, high-margin, focused-service and compact full-service hotels. The Company's portfolio currently consists of 96 hotels with approximately 21,200 rooms, located in 23 states and the District of Columbia and an ownership interest in one unconsolidated hotel with 171 rooms.