Sunstone Hotel Investors, Inc. to Issue Quarterly Dividend of $0.09 (NYSE:SHO)

Sunstone Hotel Investors, Inc. (NYSE:SHO) announced a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, August 7th, Wall Street Journal reports. Investors of record on Monday, September 30th will be given a dividend of 0.09 per share by the real estate investment trust on Tuesday, October 15th. This represents a $0.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.40%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, September 30th.

Sunstone Hotel Investors has raised its dividend by an average of 68.7% annually over the last three years. Sunstone Hotel Investors has a payout ratio of 128.6% 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 Sunstone Hotel Investors to earn $0.98 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.36 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 36.7%.

Sunstone Hotel Investors Stock Performance

Sunstone Hotel Investors stock opened at $10.60 on Friday. Sunstone Hotel Investors has a fifty-two week low of $9.03 and a fifty-two week high of $11.59. The company has a market capitalization of $2.16 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 11.78, a PEG ratio of 4.57 and a beta of 1.25. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $10.18 and a two-hundred day moving average of $10.36. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43, a quick ratio of 3.75 and a current ratio of 3.75.

Sunstone Hotel Investors (NYSE:SHO) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, August 7th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.11 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.27 by ($0.16). The company had revenue of $247.50 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $248.12 million. Sunstone Hotel Investors had a return on equity of 9.75% and a net margin of 19.51%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 10.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $0.33 EPS. On average, analysts anticipate that Sunstone Hotel Investors will post 0.88 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages recently issued reports on SHO. Wells Fargo & Company raised shares of Sunstone Hotel Investors from an “underweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and set a $10.50 price objective on the stock in a research note on Friday, September 13th. Wolfe Research raised Sunstone Hotel Investors from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $12.00 price target on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, July 10th. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded Sunstone Hotel Investors from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 1st. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating, two have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $11.07.

About Sunstone Hotel Investors

Sunstone Hotel Investors, Inc is a lodging real estate investment trust ("REIT") that as of the date of this release owns 14 hotels comprised of 6,675 rooms, the majority of which are operated under nationally recognized brands. Sunstone's strategy is to create long-term stakeholder value through the acquisition, active ownership, and disposition of well-located hotel and resort real estate.