Real Estate Firm Pays for Former Owner’s Sins. It Pays an 8.8% Dividend, and You Can Buy Its Stock for Less Than Management Did
A real estate fund that spent two years selling off its own assets now pays almost twice as much as the industry leader. The market is acting as if it expects another cut. But the numbers say otherwise. How can you tell who’s right, and when will it become clear?
Key points
The real estate fund pays an annual dividend of 8.8%, while the industry’s biggest player offers barely 5.2%
Its own management bought back shares at $8.11; today, they’re available for less than its average purchase price
Over two years, the company sold nearly $3 billion in assets and cut its dividend four times
In August, it made its first purchase in years, and its CEO says the company is fundamentally different from the one the market knows
There are two kinds of 8% yields, and one test reveals which kind this one is
A yield that looks like a spreadsheet error
A quarterly dividend of $0.19, or $0.76 a year. At a share price of around $8.36, that works out to a yield of roughly 8.8-8.9%. For comparison, Realty Income, the world’s largest landlord of this type, offers approximately 5.2%. Global Net Lease $GNL pays almost twice as much—and for a property landlord with tenants like FedEx and Dollar General, that’s a figure that makes you stop and ask: what’s the catch?
What’s even more unusual is who’s buying the shares. Since February 2025, the company has repurchased 20.9 million of its own shares at an average price of $8.11, and in the second quarter of 2026 it paid as much as $9.10 for them. So today, shares can be bought for less than the price paid by the company’s own management. As recently as early September, the stock was at $9.19, so it has lost roughly 7% in a month and is down about 15% from its 52-week high of $10.04. And that’s despite the company raising its full-year outlook in August.
The question for anyone seeking dividend income is simple: is the market rewarding patience, or does it sense something the numbers don’t show?