What about the dividend return?
With a well-diversified portfolio and reasonably high-yielding properties, many see value in investing in Castellum. The sad thing is that the company now distributes SEK 0 despite having been one of Sweden’s leading distributors.
Few weeks back, Castellum released its report for quarter 4. The management result, which is the basis for the dividend, was slightly less than the analysts expected. If we compare quarter 4 with the same quarter last year, the management profit rose, but if we look at the full year, it is a decrease compared to 2022.
| Castellum. Management result/share | |
| 2023 | SEK 9.69 |
| 2022 | 11.45 |
What about dividend return?
Of course, we had hoped to get some kind of reasoning about the dividend in the CEO’s speech, but it didn’t happen.
What we learned was basically what we already knew:
In order to protect the company’s credit rating, the board decided on a stricter financial policy and asavings program with reduced investment space in 2023 and 2024 with the aim of strengtheningthe company’s balance sheet. The 2023 annual general meeting decided that no dividend will be paid for the financial year 2022. The board will propose to the 2024 annual general meeting that no dividend be paid forthe 2023 financial year.
The last to comment on Castellum’s dividend was DNB, which predicts that the dividend will return next year:
“There will likely be no dividend for 2023, but we expect it to be reintroduced in 2024,” the bank writes in the analysis.
I’m on board with those notes and would be surprised if that’s not the case.
Last year, it looked like the real estate sector would become a red-hot sector, but that was not the case. Castellum was the 4th best stock in the real estate sector in 2023 and had a development of as much as 35% . Balder fared best, with a total return of 47% . However, the development in many areas did not look as cheerful. SBB fell by as much as 69% and ALM Equity by 46% . In total, the real estate index (Carnegie) rose by 18% and there were more winners than losers.
If you can manage without a dividend for a while, then Castellum is probably a really good choice.
Busy And Useful 