Real estate investment trusts (REITs) normally show up in our other publication, Dick Davis Dividend Digest. But today we have a REIT for growth and value investors. As Coolcat Explosive Small Cap Growth Stock Report Editor Kevin Kennedy notes below, this REIT had to suspend its dividend after the 2008 financial crisis and is still yield-less as it recovers. But for aggressive investors, the turnaround story may be reason enough to buy this low-priced stock.
“iStar Financial, Inc. (SFI, $8) is an investment company focused on commercial real estate. The company provides investment capital to high-end private and corporate owners of real estate and invests directly across a range of real estate sectors. The company, which is taxed as a real estate investment trust, has invested more than $35 billion over the past two decades. Its real estate portfolio currently totals $1.9 billion worth of operating commercial real estate assets and land assets. It lined up a new $1.8 billion credit facility in October, then priced $475 million in unsecured and convertible senior notes earlier this month as its shores up its finances. The company averaged annual earnings of $2.11 per share and paid annual dividends averaging almost $2.70 per share from 2001-2007, but it tumbled with the housing crash in 2008, stopped paying dividends that year and has reported losses in four of the past five years. The stock is up 45% in 2012 and is 16% off its Oct. 25 high of $9.09. Buy 625 iStar Financial (SFI) at the open; establish sell stop of 6.29.”
- Kevin Kennedy, The Coolcat Explosive Small Cap Growth Stock Report, December 3, 2012