Realty Income Increases Dividend 19.2%

Today Realty Income (O) announced an amendment to the previously announced merger with American Realty Capital Trust. The great news for dividend growth stock investors was that the amendment included a $0.22 increase to the original dividend increase of $0.13 per share that Realty Income estimated when the transaction was initially announced. The increase raises Realty Income’s annualized rate to $2.17 per share beginning with the February 2013 distribution. The merger agreement now represents a total of $0.35 to the annualized payment  which is a 19.2% dividend increase! Click here to read the details in the official announcement.

Realty Income is a holding in the Dividend Geek Roth IRA account. We purchased 50 shares on 10-26-12 and currently have a cost basis of $39.45. Prior to the the merger announcement our yield on cost was 4.6% with today’s announcement of a $0.35 increase our new annual yield on cost is 5.5%.

This is what long-term dividend growth stock in vesting is all about! As dividend payments increase each year your yield on cost continues to increase. Over many years long-term investors have actually built up their yield on cost to 100% so that an initial $10,000 investment actually pays them $10,000 each year in dividends.

Filed in: Dividend Increase Announcements