FEDERAL REALTY INVESTMENT TRUST (FRT) — payout ratio, four ways
Fiscal year ending 2025-12-31 · sector Real estate · payout ratios computed from SEC filings, not taken from a data vendor.
| Basis | Payout | Why it differs |
|---|---|---|
| GAAP earnings | 95.0% | What most screeners publish, and badly wrong here — depressed by depreciation on buildings that are not losing value. |
| Operating cash flow | 61.8% | Before capital spending, so it understates the payout that free cash flow shows. |
| Free cash flow | negative | Operating cash flow was $113m short of capital spending, so no ratio exists. The dividend was not funded from free cash flow this year. |
| Funds from operations | 49.3% | The basis the real estate industry uses. Adds back depreciation on buildings that are not losing value. |
Spread between highest and lowest: 46 percentage points. Same filings, different denominators.
Coverage rating 84 / 100 — Comfortable. ? Peer standing 45/50Direction 30/30Stability 9/20
Funds from operations payout, last 6 years
| Fiscal year | Payout |
|---|---|
| 2025-12-31 | 49.3% |
| 2024-12-31 | 57.3% |
| 2023-12-31 | 63.1% |
| 2022-12-31 | 50.3% |
| 2021-12-31 | 72.9% |
| 2020-12-31 | 110.3% |
Among the 47 real estate companies here, 89% pay out a larger share on this basis — this is comfortable for the sector.
The arithmetic
- GAAP earnings — dividends declared per share $4.45 ÷ diluted EPS $4.68
- Operating cash flow — dividends paid $384.8m ÷ operating cash flow $622.4m
- Free cash flow — dividends paid $384.8m ÷ (operating cash flow $622.4m − capex $735.3m)
- Funds from operations — dividends declared per share $4.45 ÷ derived FFO $9.01 per share
- FFO built NAREIT-style: net income, plus real-estate depreciation, less gains on sale, over weighted-average diluted shares
- This is an approximation. Every REIT defines its own adjusted variant in the filing text, so it will not match the earnings release exactly
Where the figures came from
- 10-K filed 2026-02-12 · accession
0000034903-26-000017
Every one is public at sec.gov and free to check. That is the point — you should not have to take my word for any of it.
Caveats on this company
- FFO derived (NAREIT approximation)
Computed by an open pipeline reading SEC XBRL directly. If any number here looks wrong to you, tell me — that is more useful to me than agreement.