Great Ajax Corp., real estate company, acquires, invests in, and manages a portfolio of residential mortgage and small balance commercial mortgage loans. The company also holds real estate owned properties acquired upon the foreclosure or other settlement of its non-performing loans, as well as through outright purchases. In addition, it acquires and originates small balance commercial loans (SBC) secured by multi-family residential and commercial mixed-use retail/residential properties; and invests in single-family and smaller commercial properties through a foreclosure event of a loan or a direct acquisition. The company elected to be taxed as a real estate investment trust for U.S. federal income tax purposes. It generally would not be subject to federal corporate income taxes, if it distributes at least 90% of its taxable income to its stockholders. Great Ajax Corp. was incorporated in 2014 and is based in Tigard, Oregon.
Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades
AJX has been the subject of several research reports. JMP Securities decreased their price objective on shares of Great Ajax from $15.00 to $11.00 and set a "market outperform" rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, April 26th. B. Riley decreased their price objective on shares of Great Ajax from $18.00 to $17.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a report on Thursday, July 21st. StockNews.com cut shares of Great Ajax from a "buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a report on Thursday, August 4th. Finally, Compass Point raised shares of Great Ajax from a "neutral" rating to a "buy" rating and set a $16.00 price objective for the company in a report on Tuesday, May 17th.
Great Ajax Stock Performance
Shares of NYSE:AJX opened at $10.16 on Monday. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $10.13 and a 200 day moving average of $10.60. The company has a current ratio of 2.12, a quick ratio of 2.19 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.77. The firm has a market capitalization of $230.97 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.58 and a beta of 1.74. Great Ajax has a 12-month low of $8.68 and a 12-month high of $14.74.
Great Ajax (NYSE:AJX - Get Rating) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, August 4th. The real estate investment trust reported ($0.14) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.30 by ($0.44). Great Ajax had a net margin of 33.63% and a return on equity of 9.19%. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $0.42 EPS. On average, research analysts anticipate that Great Ajax will post 1.07 earnings per share for the current year.
Great Ajax Increases Dividend
The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, August 31st. Shareholders of record on Monday, August 15th will be given a $0.27 dividend. This is a positive change from Great Ajax's previous quarterly dividend of $0.26. This represents a $1.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 10.63%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, August 12th. Great Ajax's dividend payout ratio is presently 231.12%.
Insiders Place Their Bets
In other Great Ajax news, major shareholder Magnetar Financial Llc sold 200,000 shares of the company's stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, July 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $24.53, for a total value of $4,906,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 43,300 shares in the company, valued at $1,062,149. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Insiders sold a total of 1,200,000 shares of company stock worth $29,722,000 over the last three months. 6.00% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.