Vornado Realty Trust slips on surprise 2023 dividend suspension

Vornado Realty Trust

27/04/2023 12:10

** Shares of Vornado Realty Trust  VNO.N  down 14.5% at
$12.76 premarket
    ** Commercial REIT postpones dividends on its common shares
until the end of 2023 and announces a $200 mln share buyback
    ** Intends to use cash retained from dividends, or from
asset sales, to reduce debt or fund share repurchases - co
    ** Piper Sandler downgrades VNO to "underweight" from
"neutral", cuts PT to $11 from $16
    ** Brokerage says a complete dividend suspension this early
in the year suggests "more going on inside 888 Seventh Avenue
than the Street appreciates"
    ** 888 Seventh Avenue in New York is the company's
headquarters 
    ** Piper Sandler questions if implementing a $200 mln stock
buyback is ideal considering cash preservation is so critical to
Vornado 
    ** Average rating of 14 brokerages covering the stock is
"hold", median PT is $18 - Refinitiv data
    ** VNO offers a dividend yield of 10% vs 7.7% dividend yield
at commercial REIT Boston Properties Inc  BXP.N  and 14.1% at SL
Green Realty Corp  SLG.N 

 (Reporting by Medha Singh)
 ((medha.singh@thomsonreuters.com))