Medical Properties Trust, Inc. ( MPW ) shares are trading higher Monday after the company announced it has sold its majority interest in five Utah Hospitals.

The Details:

Medical Properties Trust ( MPW ) announced on Friday that it has sold its interests in five Utah hospitals to a newly formed joint venture while MPT retained an approximate 25% interest in the new venture. The venture also placed new non-recourse secured financing, providing $190 million of additional cash to MPT based on its share of the proceeds. 

The two transactions delivered approximately $1.1 billion of immediate cash proceeds to MPT, which are expected to be used to reduce outstanding debt. MPT said it will pay in full the approximate $300 million Australian term loan due 2024 and other borrowings under its revolving credit facility. 

“MPT’s approach to underwriting hospital real estate has once again been validated by highly sophisticated third-party participants in a broadening private market for real hospital assets. Our primary focus remains on accelerating our capital allocation strategy, and we are now confident that we will exceed our initial target of $2.0 billion in liquidity transactions in 2024 based on the valuations achieved on recent transactions and the terms we are actively negotiating for additional transactions," said Edward K. Aldag, Jr., CEO of MPT. 

The company also announced that its board of directors declared a regular quarterly cash dividend of 15 cents per share of common stock to be paid on May 1, to stockholders of record on April 22. 

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MPW Stock Prediction 2024:

Equity research can be a valuable source of information for learning about a company's fundamentals. Analysts create financial models based on the fundamentals and expected future earnings of a company to arrive at a price target and recommendation for the stock.

Shares of Medical Properties Trust ( MPW ) have an average 1-year price target of $4.38, representing an expected downside of 12.03%.

Because of differences in assumptions, analysts can arrive at very different price targets and recommendations. 1 analysts have bearish recommendations on Medical Properties Trust ( MPW ), while 2 analysts have bullish ratings. The street high price target from Exane BNP Paribas is $6, while the street low from Deutsche Bank is $2.

MPW Price Action: According to Benzinga Pro, Medical Properties Trust ( MPW ) shares are up 21.7% at $4.85 at the time of publication Monday.

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