Alexander's reported one of the strangest quarters in its history as a REIT: net income of $155.4 million - a $30.24 GAAP diluted share - roughly twenty-five times the year-ago $1.19. The cause is a single non-recurring line, the $148.0 million gain on the sale of its Rego Park I property in Queens, a transaction that closed in late May. Strip that one-off, as the company's own Funds From Operations does, and the quarter tells a very different, quieter story: NOI rose 9% and FFO rose about 5% to $3.02 a share. The headline was a sale; the operating quarter was modest but positive.
The tension underneath is not the earnings number, which is meaningless by itself. It is the dividend. Alexander's pays a $4.50 quarterly dividend, an indicated $18.00 a year, a 6.6% yield at the current price. That payout has now out-run the earnings and cash that conventionally cover it for at least two years - FFO was $12.27 a share for all of fiscal 2025 and roughly $10.96 a share on a trailing-twelve-month basis, while operating cash flow fell $19 million short of the dividend in 2025. The gap this year is being bridged by the $205.8 million in cash the Rego Park I sale put into the corporate treasury, lifting liquidity to $358 million against about $482 million of net debt. The stock, at $272, trades near but below its 52-week high, richly on FFO and at a very high multiple of the book value depreciation has deflated. This is the report's real question: is the yield a covered distribution, or a return of the company's own capital and one-off sale proceeds?