Why Millrose Properties Stock Was Winning This Week

For the first time in its (admittedly short) history as a publicly traded real estate investment trust (REIT), Millrose Properties (MRP -4.46%) has declared a dividend, and investors were quite happy about the news.

They traded the stock up on the back of this development, and week to date as of early Friday morning, it was up nearly 14% in price, according to data compiled by S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Chunky dividend declared

Millrose, a spinoff of residential construction company Lennar that began trading in early February, declared its inaugural dividend as the trading week kicked off on Monday. Millrose is paying $0.38 per each of its class A and B shares, to be handed out on April 15 to investors of record as of April 4.

The dividend is based on the initial, brief period of Millrose’s existence, covering its business from the day its stock began trading publicly to this coming March 31, the company said.

In addition to the dividend declaration, Millrose also provided an operational and financial update. As a spinoff of a construction company, the REIT buys and develops land, then sells the finished real estate to Lennar and other builders via option contracts with stipulated costs and takedown schedules. The monies from these sales will be plowed back into new land purchases.

Land light, payout heavy

Millrose is basically the product of Lennar’s “land light” strategy; with the spinoff, the builder doesn’t have to tie up vast amounts of capital purchasing land.

It’s a bit early to tell whether this will make Millrose an attractive investment; management has said that it’s aiming for a quarterly earnings per share run rate of $0.67 to $0.69 by the end of this year. As a REIT, it will be required to pay regular dividends — the first one alone yields a respectable 1.5%, so if that’s any indication of future dividend policy, the company will be well worth watching.