As of its most recent filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Franklin Resources Inc. has decreased its position in shares of First Industrial Realty Trust by 36.5% during the fourth quarter in 2023. The fund reported owning 202,181 shares of this real estate investment trust’s stock after selling 116,265 shares over the course of the quarter, amounting to around 0.15% ownership of First Industrial Realty Trust that equates to $9,757,000. This decrease has set off a flurry of activity and analysis within the real estate investment sector.
Further fueling interest in this stock is news that First Industrial has recently announced a quarterly dividend payout set to occur on July 17th, with shareholders on record as at June 30th receiving $0.32 per share according to their most recent filings with the SEC. This represents a dividend yield of 2.46% on an annualized basis and suggests that First Industrial Realty Trust’s current dividend payout ratio is approximately 44.76%.
Notably, several analysts have recently commented on this stock’s quality as an investment choice including Robert W Baird who boosted its price objective from $60.00 to $63.00 back on April 24th; Royal Bank of Canada which reconfirmed its Outperform rating and pegged a $65 price objective for FR back in February while StockNews.com newly entered a “hold” rating and gave it such positioning after concluding their own analysis.
Bloomberg.com displays consensus ratings for First Industrial Realty Trust as ‘Moderate Buy’ with a corresponding target price estimate fixed at $58.57.
There is little doubt that there will be further action taken by other investors who follow these developments closely whether they are eyeing potential opportunities or looking elsewhere altogether considering all available data points across this portfolio company’s recent history.
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Institutional Investors Swarm First Industrial Realty Trust (FR)
First Industrial Realty Trust (FR) has been in the news lately due to its popularity with institutional investors. The real estate investment trust’s stock has caught the attention of Wall Street juggernauts like Vanguard Group Inc., State Street Corp, Nomura Holdings Inc., Cohen & Steers Inc., and Centersquare Investment Management LLC as they have lifted their respective stakes in FR by staggering percentages over the last quarters.
Vanguard Group Inc. added an additional 210,948 FR shares during Q3, bringing its stake up to 19,454,712 shares valued at $871,765,000. State Street Corp also jumped aboard the FR bandwagon with a 13.4% increase that amounted to an extra 844,833 shares in Q1. Similarly, Nomura Holdings Inc. increased its stake by an astronomical rate of 1737.8%, buying an additional 4,724,410 FR shares worth $223,956,000 in Q3 alone.
Cohen & Steers Inc. lifted their position by a whopping 80.9% by adding an extra 1,719882 shares during Q3 worth $172,3340 while Centersquare Investment Management LLC joined the game with a lift of 24.6% that netted them an additional 719682 FR shares worth $163,4460.
Even Scott A. Musil CFO sold off some of his company stock In April this year but corporate insiders only hold about .55% of First Industrial Realty Trust according to insiders reports.
Despite all this attention from institutional investors pushing its stakes higher or lower depending on their transactions for buying or selling each quarter reports show only about two percent of First Industrial Realty Trust is owned by such groups and not much more than point five from insider trading.
As it stands now shares of First Industrial Realty Trust have opened at $51.97 on Thursday representing a market cap of $6.87 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.17 and a beta of 0.99. A one year low of $42.91 was set in May while an all-time high arrived June at $55.88 creating somewhat of a spread that is currently settling around the fifty-two-dollar range for now which is why investors are keeping such close tabs on the FR market today.
