Friday, May 14, 2010

H&R REIT Announces Distribution Increases

The well-known real estate income trust, H&R REIT (Toronto: HR.UN), today announced as part of its 1st-quarter results that it will start increasing back its distributions. From the current $0.06 per month, distributions will slowly increase each quarter until it hits $0.0875 per month in the second quarter of 2012.

This is great news. The distributions were cut in half (from $0.12 per month to $0.06) in January 2009 when financing for The Bow (a big office tower in Calgary) became difficult during the financial crisis. But although that string of increases shows that situation is improving, it does not (yet) brings the distributions back to the pre-crisis level. But it is a nice reward for those who had faith in the future.

I own about 100 units of the trust in my DRiP portfolio. This year's increases will add about $7.50 to my dividend income.

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